


Define Normal

by Jean Genie (LetYourselfGo)



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Breast Play, Dark!Eve/Oksana, Domestic Fluff, Eve's Korean family, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Femme Eve, Femme Villanelle, Fluff, Gender Neutral Character, Hair Pulling, Hand Feeding, Interior Designer Oksana, Korean street food, Latex Kink, Lingerie Kink, Making Out, Medium Burn, Multiple Orgasms, Murder as a tool of female empowerment, Nipple Play, Oral Sex, Pet Names, Post Season 3, Post Season 3 Finale, Power Play, Power bottom Eve, Power top Villanelle, Queer Culture, Queer Media, Semi-Public Sex, Shopping, Strap on sex, Subspace, Sugar Daddy Villanelle, Switching, Traveling, alil angst, baths together, butch Eve, butch Villanelle, character defining hair styles, definition of self, korea - Freeform, mild mommy kink, roleplaying, smooshy feelings, then lots of sex, very expensive underwear, well as close as these two can get to that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:21:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 45,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24889048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetYourselfGo/pseuds/Jean%20Genie
Summary: “Eve, I thought we weren’t going to ever have the ‘are you hungry? What do you want to eat?’ couple conversation.”“Oh I know exactly how hungry you are after a week of not being able to touch me.”Konstantin peeks again and sees Villanelle is giving her a predatory grin. Instead of what he would always see, Eve being too scared to respond, now she just leans in.“How about we just take care of that right here?”  Eve says in a low tone.“Oh, baby, I missed you.  But first,” Villanelle turns her head and calls out, “Konstantin, you might want to leave now.  We don’t do shows for free.”______How do Eve and Villanelle end up living a not-so-normal life together in a chateau in the south of France nine months after realizing that they can't walk away from one another?  A lot of traveling, shopping, kissing, fucking, dancing, laughing, crying, coping, topping, bottoming, murdering, and some truly fabulous food and drink.(15 chapters plus 5 outsider POV vignettes)
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 245
Kudos: 694





	1. In the den of lions at rest

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try and figure out how if Eve/Dark!Eve and Villanelle/Oksana’s natures had the space to stretch out and roam that would allow them to have what would be a normal life for them, a life together where they feed each other instead of devouring each other. This is the first time I've written femmeslash in YEARS, as I've been entrenched in m/m fic for a long time. Considering what a huge lesbian I am, this is something that needed to be remedied, so thanks to that gay ass finale for the inspo! 
> 
> I’m using the fan theory that only 9 months have passed in the KE universe and keeping Villanelle at age 24/25 and going with Sandra Oh’s age of 48 for Eve. I have Villanelle say that her and Eve are gay to fit into her tendency to use extremes to provoke a reaction from Eve but I think it's pretty obvious these are two bi/queer queens. I'm also using the *hand waving* questionable logic about long term effects of things the show uses. Lots of thanks to please-return-to-villanelle on tumblr for your amazing analysis of the show. It helped me find my way in this when I was feeling lost with this new Villanelle and Eve.

_It's like I'm powerful with a little bit of tender  
An emotional, sexual bender  
Mess me up, yeah, but no one does it better  
There's nothing better_

Konstantin has to see. He has to see where she’s ended up, because it turns out that Cuba is extremely unsatisfying without not just his daughter but without Villanelle as well. He had had no idea how to find out where she is now without his contacts in the Twelve and MI6, and assumed that she’d want to keep it that way, but then he received a postcard in the mail with a picture of two cuddling cats with the words “Amore de Minou” in swirly text on it, with a postmark from Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer, a small town on the French Riviera. He didn’t know who sent it, and wondered if it was a trap, but when he couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d left her, he had to check on her.

When asking the proprietor of the local grocery in town if they knew a woman, so tall, blonde and Russian, he’d gotten a confused look, and a shake of the head.

“Qu’wn est-il d’une femme asiatique aux chevaux boucles?” He asks in his horrible French, and the woman nods enthusiastically. She tells him that the lovely Marcy lives just outside of the village in “une maison absolument magnifique” with her charming wife, and now Konstantin definitely has to see this.

After sweating his way through the long walk down a road that slowly becomes more dusty and unused, he arrives at what isn’t just a house, but an extensive property. Konstantin climbs over the low stone wall along the road and starts to weave his way through a truly expansive and completely wild stretch of fragrantly blooming trees mixed in with huge colourful flowers, foxgloves and rhododendrons, rose bushes full of blooms a vivid shade of red, with little hidden alcoves cut in here and there, this one with a antique iron bistro set, this one with some ornately embroidered cushions on the ground with two Hermes scarves tied to the thick branches above in which were unquestionably used as restraints. Despite the domesticity, he knows that is the home of a killer, and he is not welcome here. But he has to see. He has to know.

He follows a path out of the bushes and the view opening up in front of him is breath-taking, the brilliant blue of the Mediterranean beyond a long stretch of verdant lawn, and he can barely make out a line of targets nailed onto tall wood poles. And there to the left, a beautiful two story chateau, probably an 18th century manor house. It’s been well maintained, but not so well maintained that it’s lost any of its original rustic feel that allows it to blend in perfectly with the purposely uncontrolled gardens around it. He skirts around the outside of the house to the back, coming up to the corner enough to peek one eye around.

There’s a good sized back patio with a cerulean blue pool, and next to it, a huge two person chaise lounge surrounded by a multitude of unlit lanterns and candles, and a white silk canopy over it that seems to float on the breeze coming off the water. He recognizes a figure sitting on the set of stairs coming from the back of the house to the patio. It’s Eve, but not like he’d ever seen her. She’s wearing a saffron coloured silk dress that clings almost diaphanously to her body. Her skin has turned a dark caramel from the sun and her hair is a wild explosion of beautifully defined curls floating around her smiling face.

She’s talking on her phone in what sounds like… Persian? He can only catch the end of the conversation, something about a rendezvous place, and then she hangs up, stretching out to lean back on the step behind her. She sighs in total contentment, and Konstantin knows that even though she seems contained and calm, that she’s got the confidence of a predator, the confidence of…

And there she is stepping outside, holding her hand up to shade her eyes as she adjusts to the brightness.

He knows instantly why the woman at the store hadn’t known who he meant. Villanelle’s hair is short now, an androgynous cut, clipped close around the sides and back with a showy up swoop of length at the top. As much of a shock is the colour, her natural dark chocolate brown that she always told him she loathed. Contrasting against this is the stark white of her wide legged tailored pants and men’s linen button up shirt. She’s still full of swagger, but when she sees Eve her face is transformed, and my god, it’s joy, pure joy and love that’s written in every part of her. Konstantin grasps at his chest, feeling it tinge from what he realizes is his own joy, even relief, at seeing her like this.

She sits and tucks up behind Eve, a leg on each side of her, and wraps her arms around her, pulling Eve back into her body as she nuzzles into her neck, into her mass of curls. Eve falls into it without hesitation, knowing without looking that it’s her, and they stay like this, swaying a little bit, not talking until Villanelle pulls back enough to look down at Eve.

She says something in a language he doesn’t recognize; it sounds Asian, but not Mandarin because he knows exactly how terrible Villanelle’s Mandarin sounds. Eve huffs out a laugh in response, turning her head to look her in the face.

“You wish.” She says with a cheeky grin. “How did it go, Ksyusha?”

“Good. They loved it.”

“Of course they did. You did an amazing job. I bet they liked the master bedroom the best. That antique Greek sleigh bed you found was unbelievable. You could absolutely see Cleopatra getting eaten out by Marc Anthony on it.”

“Well my client being the head of acquisitions for the Tate, I knew he would think that too. Plus he introduced me to an artist friend who wants me to do her winter home in Montego Bay. So how do you feel about going to Jamaica next month?”

“Depends. What kind of artist? Conceptual or installation?”

“No, traditional, thank god.”

“And you’ll bring that extremely small bikini you just got so I can peel it off of you?”

“The one from Agent Provocateur?”

“Hmm, yes.” And then Eve kisses her, and kisses her and the intimacy of it becomes too much. He looks away, knowing that this moment is not for his eyes.

“What about you? You have any work coming up?” He hears Villanelle says, her voice a little rough now.

“Local insurgents kidnapping girls on their way to school in Iran. Tried to sell them to a sex trafficker in Berlin last week, disclosed the location of where they’re being held.”

And that little whine in response, he knows it so well. He doesn’t even need to see Villanelle’s face to know the pout on it.

“But I just got back.”

“Well, the flight isn’t until tomorrow so we can brainstorm ideas on how to kill these fuckers.”

“Definitely cut their dicks off.”

“Oh absolutely.”

“Did you have dinner on the train?”

“Eve, I thought we weren’t going to ever have the ‘are you hungry? What do you want to eat?’ couple conversation.”

“Oh I know exactly how hungry you are after a week of not being able to touch me.”

Konstantin peeks again and sees Villanelle is giving her a predatory grin. Instead of what he would always see, Eve being too scared to respond, now she just leans in.

“How about we just do it here?” Eve says in a low tone.

“Baby, I missed you. But first,” Villanelle turns her head and calls out, “Konstantin, you might want to leave now. We don’t do shows for free.”

“Shit!” Konstantin should have known they would sense him there. This was a predator of the highest caliber who he trained himself, and her much loved and very protected mate.

He hears Eve snort, and waits to see if they’re going to come at him.

“Seriously, Konstantin. Go away.” Eve shouts. “Come back at 7 and we can have supper.”

“Really?” He hears Villanelle grouse.

“Yes, babygirl. He’s a very sad old man who has no friends. It’ll be our charitable act for the week.”

“Fiiiine.”

That’s all Konstantin needs to back off as quickly as possible, stopping only to call out “Should I bring wine?”

“Go away!!!” Villanelle shouts and he starts to walk back through the fragrant trees, smiling to himself. His little girl, all grown up.

___

Ksyusha - Russian nickname for Ksenia/Oksana  
Qu’wn est-il d’une femme asiatique aux chevaux boucles? - What about an Asian woman with curly hair?  
[The absolutely picturesque little town of Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer](https://www.google.com/maps/place/83270+Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer,+France/@43.1742375,5.6704654,13z/data=!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x12cebc738732d97f:0x594966412c5651c0!2sFrench+Riviera,+France!3b1!8m2!3d43.2547731!4d6.6378577!3m4!1s0x12c9a86a4528d78f:0x40819a5fd8fc9c0!8m2!3d43.1826491!4d5.7094574) Also, the tiny Agent Provocateur bikini of Villanelle's - [top](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/370843350542012779/) and [bottom](https://wanelo.co/p/19431186/new-in-by-agent-provocateur-laticia-bikini-brief).


	2. Hey lesbos!

_The last time I saw you we had just split in two_  
_You were looking at me, I was looking at you_  
_You had a way so familiar I could not recognize_  
_Cause you had blood on your face_  
_And I had blood in my eyes_  
_But I swear by your expression_  
_That the pain down in your soul was the same_  
_As the one down in mine_

Nine months earlier

This was the line, then. From this point on, everything in her life, in Villanelle’s life, would be different. They have accepted that from now on, it’s their life, combined and dear god the relief of accepting that makes Eve feel a thousand pounds lighter.

Standing in the whip sting of the wind coming over the bridge, seeing Villanelle turning to look back, she knew that she had been waiting this whole time for Eve to be there, to stop denying a self-evident truth and for her to show Villanelle that she knew what their inability to walk away from each other meant for them, for the rest of their lives, really. Because it might not end up being a very long life, but it would be with them together, so at least it was going to be fun. And maybe poor? So maybe it’ll also be up to Eve to help Villanelle deal with only being able to afford to buy clothes from Primark from now on.

She holds out her hand and smiles her most gentle smile. Villanelle pulls her bottom lip in slightly, chin dropped, looking almost shy, if that was something even possible for her. It passes almost instantly, and then she’s as sly as the cat who got the canary, sauntering towards Eve like she has all the time in the world.

“Okay, missy, I get it. You were right.” Eve huffs.

“I like the sound of that. Might need to hear it again though.”

“Oh really?” Eve starts to pull her hand back and suddenly Villanelle hops to it, and she’s there, grabbing onto her hand.

“Okay, just one more time, but can I record it?”

“Oh god, this is my future, isn’t it?”

Villanelle is swinging their hands, cheeky, and in that moment, Eve feels complete in a way she never has before. She’s looking at the dimples in Villanelle’s cheeks flashing at her, and she looks happy, so happy and Eve marvels that she could make someone that joyful, that content and all the sudden Eve is overwhelmed with something, some deep, overpowering…

“I’m starving.”

“You wanna order take out and watch a movie?”

Eve knows the subtext of this question, the call back, and she takes just a moment to look at all the hope in Villanelle’s eyes before answering.

“As long as it’s not Quentin Tarantino, then sure.”

“Ew!” Villanelle screws up her nose in the most appallingly adorable way. “Do I look like a perverted racist to you?”

“Jury’s out on perverted.”

Villanelle positively leers as she answers. “You have no idea, Eve.”

“Soon I will.” And this volley back is so new and so astounding that Villanelle stumbles, open mouthed, and then a flash of sheer delight settling into each corner of her upturned mouth.

“Plus, now you can tell everyone that you’re not a racist because your girlfriend is Korean.” Eve says completely deadpan.

Villanelle honks out a joyous peel of laughter and now it’s Eve that feels smug.

Eve took them to get pick-up from the Orphan-Crack-Chicken place, and Villanelle wrinkled her nose as she saw the grungy restaurant.

“Eve, this place better not give me food poisoning. Or rabies. Or some kind of not yet discovered strain of syphilis.”

“It’ll be worth it, trust me.”

And then Villanelle is clasping her hands behind her back and rocking on her feet with the cheekiest grin.

“You know, we should probably go ahead and kiss. Like a proper first kiss. And maybe instead of the head butt afterwards you can spank me.”

Eve scoffs and rolls her eyes, trying to not let how suddenly nervous she is show.

“Such a pervert.”

“That’s not a no, Eve.” But despite the challenge in Villanelle’s voice, she can’t make herself look up at her. She feels a hand on her arm, gently pulling her to face her, and the look on Villanelle’s face makes her already thundering heart go into overdrive.

“Holy shit,” she breathes out involuntarily as Villanelle uses her other hand to cup Eve’s cheek.

Anything and everything else cuts off the moment that their lips touch, and Eve’s hands reach out to grasp Villanelle’s waist and it’s so much more than she thought it would be, and so much different but so right and my god, she just wants to fucking devor her…

“Hey! Lesbos! Your fucking order is up!”

They break apart, and it’s Eve’s face that’s full of intense irritation and what is quickly becoming homicidal thoughts as she whips around to look at the asshole behind the counter waving their bag while smirking at them.

“Hey no, it’s okay, let it go.” Villanelle wraps her fingers around Eve’s wrists, pulling her back towards her. “We are lesbos. And he’s just jealous, because I get to make out with a totally hot babe.”

“Is this the new you? Villanelle the pacifist?”

“So what if it is? So what if I’m not that person anymore. Do you have a problem with that?” The defensiveness in this makes it clear that Villanelle is still not sure of not only herself, but of how Eve is going to react to her, and Eve has to instantly make sure that she has nothing to fear.

“Of course it’s okay.” Eve pulls her closer to her, making sure she’s looking right into her eyes. “You be who you are. Who you really are.”

“And what if what I am isn’t Villanelle anymore. Will you still want me?”

Eve knows the weight behind this question.

“Will this new you still have amazing style and give people shit all the time and kiss me better than anyone I’ve ever kissed before?”

And my god, that’s a genuine blush flooding Villanelle’s cheeks.

“Yes. Of course.” She bends to kiss Eve one more time, pulling back only to whisper against her lips, “always.”

Of course when Villanelle creates a safehouse for herself, it’s a chic flat with a view of the London Eye.

“Just because it’s off the books doesn’t mean that it has to be a depressing hole.” Villanelle says when she sees Eve’s crooked eyebrow. “You know, like your apartment.”

Sitting on the couch eating in this 20th floor condo with one of the best views Eve’s ever seen of London, Villanelle’s reaction to the chicken is pretty much what Eve’s had been the first time. Watching her groan and roll her eyes and lick the tip of each finger, Eve starts to understand why Hugo had used the place as foreplay. Through a mouthful she tells Eve to turn on the TV and pick something for them to watch on Netflix.

“It never occurred to me that you might have something as mundane as a Netflix account.”

“I don’t have a Netflix account, Eve. This is yours.”

“How did you..?”

“Your passwords are still unbelievably easy to figure out. Villanelle93? So flattering, baby.” And yikes, the little leap Eve’s heart takes at being called baby in Villanelle’s Russian accent is honestly kind of embarrassing for a woman her age.

Watching all the titles scroll by on the ridiculously large television, Eve has to bite her lip to keep from laughing at all the cheesy early Aughts romcoms that Villanelle shouts out that she wants to watch. She gets to Sliding Doors and with a mouthful of chicken Villanelle says “THIS ONE!!”

“Oh my god, really? I thought you had good taste.”

Villanelle tosses her now empty takeout box onto the table so she can cross her arms and sink into the couch, pouting. It’s so fucking cute that Eve has to clench her hands not to reach over and just _squeeze_.

They end up deciding on Better Than Chocolate (“You’re gay now Eve, it’s important for you to learn about our culture.”) They sit close on the couch but not touching, and during the love scene Eve feels her face flushing and my god it’s like fucking high school all over again and she’s sitting in a rec room with someone she really really wants to make out with but doesn’t know how to initiate.

“What’s going on with you?” Villanelle finally asks. “Why are you so tense? Do you not enjoy indie lesbian movies from the 90s?”

“I’m sorry! I just, all I can think about is if you’re going to touch me, or if I should touch you and for fucksake, I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know!”

“I think you do, Eve.” The dark in Villanelle’s smirk is all it takes to get Eve to grab her and start kissing her, pulling her closer to her, and pulling her lower lip into her mouth and running her tongue along it, biting it until she hears Villanelle hiss. She pulls back and Eve can not just taste the metallic tang of blood but see it as a bright stain on Villanelle’s lips. This sting, this aggressiveness triggers something in Villanelle, and Eve can see the exact moment the predator comes out.

And Jesus Christ, if Eve thought it was mind blowing to just kiss Villanelle once in the middle of a chicken shack, making out with her on the couch is fucking transcendent. Eve’s never in her life been kissed like this, touched like this. Villanelle’s hands on her arms, her waist, are holding so tightly, and Eve just rolls in the headiness of it, how that possessiveness makes her feel. Just as Eve is about to go for it and throw a leg over Villanelle’s lap and straddle her, Villanelle pulls away with a big shit-eating grin on her face.

“Time for bed.”

All the nerves and tension have settled low in Eve’s body from all of the touches and kissing but suddenly she’s feeling like she’s about to jump out of her own skin and into Villanelle’s.

“There are clean sheets in the closet in the bathroom.” Villanelle says, standing up. “Let me just grab a blanket for myself.”

She’s halfway to the bathroom before Eve’s brain catches up to her.

“Wait, what?”

Villanelle comes back into the room with an armful of blankets and a pillow and drops them on the couch.

“I am being a good host and letting you take the bed.” With that she’s spinning back towards the bathroom. Eve’s up on her feet following her, utterly confused.

“You’re seriously going to sleep on the couch.”

“Yes, Eve.”

“And not in the bed.”

“Yes, Eve.”

“With me.”

“Correct.”

She pushes past Eve with the sheets in her arms to go into the bedroom and place them on the bed. Eve stands frozen by the door because she honestly can not believe this is happening.

Villanelle focuses back on Eve again, slowly stalking towards her with what is quickly becoming a wolfish grin. She comes up flush in front of Eve, and looks down at her for a moment before leaning over to whisper into her ear.

“Good night, Eve.” And then she’s out of the room.

“Fuckity fucking fuck fuck!”


	3. Fuck the chicken

_Sun is up, I'm a mess_   
_Gotta get out now, gotta run from this_   
_Here comes the shame, here comes the shame_

It’s almost completely black in the bedroom when Eve jerks herself out of a dream of Kenny running to her, yelling, but making no sound. She has a moment of pure panicky confusion, groping around her blindly at the strange bed, eyes desperately roaming over the strange room. There’s something, though, there’s something that feels familiar… Villanelle’s scent, around her, on her, and god she feels so alive in that moment, from fear to bliss in seconds as she brings the scent into her, over and over. Suddenly Eve is starving for her.

She walks as quietly as she can out of the bedroom to the front room. There the lights from the city are so bright that even this late into the night she can see everything plainly. As her eyes adjust, she hears a whisper of a sound. It’s there, in front of her, it sounds like a gasping, a heaving breath, and what has to be a whimper. Coming around to the front of the couch, she sees Villanelle, curled up tight, clutching her own chest, shoulders shaking. She looks up at Eve with huge eyes, full of tears and of fear.

“Eve,” Villanelle says, and it’s broken, and choked with utter sadness and Eve feels a tug, like a signal, pulling on her inside, and it’s her, it’s Villanelle on the other side and she’s shattering, and Eve can feel it all, vibrating through this unbreakable connection.

Moving on pure instinct Eve sits down and pulls Villanelle to her, tucks her face into her neck, runs her hands soothingly up and down her back. Villanelle’s arms are tentative as they come up around Eve, and Eve can feel a trembling in the fingertips ghosting across her back.

“Shhh, shhh,” and it comes out of her so naturally. “You’re okay, you’re okay.”

“I’m scared, Eve.” And she’s saying it like she’s surprised, this novel feeling completely foreign to her.

“I’m here now, you’re safe.” Eve says. She knows now that she’s the only person who can protect this woman, love this woman, and it’s starting to feel like the purpose she’d been looking for her entire life. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

She can feel the dampness of Villanelle’s tears on her shoulder, and tugs her even closer.

“What did it feel like after I shot you? What did it feel like when you thought you were going to die?” She whispers in a voice laced with fear.

Eve had not really allowed herself to think about that moment since it happened. Through her long stay in the hospital, during her recovery, during everything that had happened since, she’d pushed it away. It suddenly becomes clear to her that she did so because she knew she was partially complicit in it, that her constant refusal of how she felt about Villanelle had played into her almost dying.

“I thought about you.” She breathes out the truth now, whispering this secret into the night. “I thought about how I had lied to you. About how I felt, about loving you.”

“How could you have loved me in that moment? After what I had done?” Villanelle’s voice is shaking, catching in her throat. “I thought I killed you, Eve and I just walked away afterwards. They were all right, everyone was right to call me a monster.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Eve murmurs into her ear. “You are not. You just didn’t know. You didn’t know how to do it then, how to really love someone. How could you have, when no one had shown you what love looks like? Least of all me.”

“How do I do it then? How do I know that I love you for real?”

“This time you gave me the chance to walk away. You let me choose.”

“I’m sorry, I am so sorry, I shouldn’t have lied to you, I shouldn’t have tricked you like that.” Villanelle buries her face deeper into Eve’s neck and her hands go from tentative to clutching at her. “You always have that choice. You always will. I will never make those kinds of decisions for you. I’m not going to do to you what they did to me.”

“And I’ll never do that to you either. You have your freedom now. No one can make you do anything you don’t want to do. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that stays true.”

Eve pulls back enough for them to be face to face. She reaches up to wipe the tears off Villanelle’s face with the backs of her fingers, and her own expression is determined, sure.

“You don’t have to kill anymore. If it becomes necessary, to protect you, to protect us, I'll do it. It's a righteous cause, so I won't feel any guilt. I will do it so you don’t have to.”

“Eve, I don’t think you know what something like that really means, what it does to you.”

“Do you want to know what flashed before my eyes right before I lost consciousness that day? I saw you. I saw you and all I could think was how scared I was about leaving you on your own. Do you want to know what I thought when I saw Dasha lying on the ground? I thought about how she'd talked about you, as a machine she'd created, something broken, and all I could think was wanting to silence her forever for making you believe that. I am here to keep you safe, to take care of you and let nothing stand in your way to being fully the person you are meant to be.”

The next day Villanelle becomes very quiet. She spends most of it with her eyes silently following Eve, watching her as she folds up the blankets from the couch, as she talks about everything that she discovered in the months they were apart, tells her about Kenny’s funeral and Carolyn’s daughter and about how she found her depressing hole of an apartment, about the guys in the kitchen at the restaurant she was working, about one night when the owner asked her if she was in the Chinese mafia. (“We’re Korean for godsake!”)

Villanelle responds with one word answers to Eve’s basic questions, but always shakes her head if Eve asks her anything too inquisitive. She figures that Villanelle needs this, and lets her have her distance and her silence, until towards the end of the day she realizes that a tension has begun to creep across her face, that there’s an edge to the silence that wasn’t there before.

“What with this face? What’s going on?”

“I’m scared that you’re going to disappear.”

“What? Why do you think that?”

And then those big eyes are blinking out tears that wind their way through all the fear on Villanelle’s face.

“Because even though I always get what I want, I have never gotten what I need.”

Eve feels grabbed and pinned down by this truth. She reaches out to run her fingers down Villanelle’s impossibly soft arms and tucks her fingers into the other woman’s open palms.

“I think we’ve established that I’m not going anywhere.” Villanelle nods but there’s still doubt mixed with the tears in her eyes. “What, what is it?”

“I’m sorry I ruined your life.” Genuine regret is something she never thought she’d see on Villanelle’s face.

“Hey, I ruined my life, not you. I made those choices.”

“But I took away your chicken.”

“Fuck the chicken.” She pulls her closer by their joined hands. “I had been asleep for years, and you came in and woke me up.”

“With a kiss? Like Prince Charming?” Villanelle is smiling tentatively, seeking approval.

“And all you wanted was to have dinner with me.”

“That’s all I ever wanted.”

“That’s all?”

“And to watch a movie with you.”

“And now that we’ve done both those things, what do you wanna do?”

And there’s that Cheshire grin, flashing out from behind the drying tears.

“Perverted things.”

“There’s my girl.”

They go to the Tesco to pick up some things. As they walk down the aisle, Villanelle tentatively reaches out to hold Eve’s hand, and the half hopeful, half scared look on her face as she does almost breaks Eve’s heart. She squeezes her hand back, and starts to pull Villanelle with her by it.

“All this fucking stress makes me crave candy, it fucking sucks.” Eve complains as she grabs a handful of Twirl bars and throws them into the basket Villanelle is holding, next to a giant package of Twizzlers, a burner phone, and a copy of Hello! with a very excitable promise of coverage of the Queen’s birthday.

“I love the British royal family. So much dignity for a lineage of weak, pathetic men with male pattern baldness.” Villanelle says when she picks it up.

Eve has a disconcerting couple of seconds where she wonders if they should buy condoms before she realizes nope, that’s not that kind of sex and oh my god she’s never had that kind of sex and maybe you do use condoms?? until she realizes that she’s standing there with her brows knit, staring off into space while Villanelle watches her.

“If you’re thinking about trying to buy cigarettes, it’s not happening.”

They’re back at the chicken place picking up dinner when Eve turns on the burner phone and checks the encrypted voicemail box Bear set up for her. As she does, Villanelle, with uncharacteristic awkwardness, slowly moves herself closer and closer to Eve until she is flush with Eve’s back, and finally Eve reaches out behind her and wraps an arm around Villanelle’s hip. The delighted little coo that Villanelle lets out when she does makes Eve so happy she accidentally smiles in the direction of the guy who had called them lesbos the night before. She very quickly turns it into a glare as she holds the phone to her ear.

Carolyn’s voice is tightly controlled as she tells her that she’s been thinking about what Kenny would want her to do in this situation, and to that end she’s figured out how to give them an out, a clean slate, and that they aren’t going to be followed. (“I swear to you, Eve, after what I have had to do to make this happen, if you two go on some sort of Bonnie and Clyde rampage, I will be there to hunt you both down myself. And tell Villanelle that she doesn’t have to worry about Hélène. She’s no longer a problem.”) She gives her an address somewhere in Stratford-upon-Avon and cryptically tells her to think of what is the most important thing to her when she gets there.

Villanelle is viciously tearing off huge bites of multiple Twizzlers while she watches Eve’s face as she listens to the message. Eve hangs up the phone, looking down at it in her hands, incredulous.

“Is everything okay? Is the mous… I mean is Niko okay?”

“Yeah, we need to talk about that.”

“Oh. Okay.” Villanelle says nervously. “I’m, uh… I’m sorry. About Dasha. Stabbing Niko.”

“Are you?”

“Yes, Eve. He was out of bounds. I knew that and I respected that.”

“I know you did.”

“But he was not good enough for you. He was like a five, and Eve, you are a ten. You deserve another ten. Like me.”

Eve responds by handing her the phone. “Here, rent us a car.”

“Why? Where are we going?”

“I have a hankering for a commemorative Shakespeare tea spoon.” Eve takes the Twizzlers out of Villanelle’s hand and takes a huge bite. “I think that Carolyn is the Twelve now.”

“God, that's hot.”


	4. Jen and Marcy from New Jersey

_Everything you bring me_   
_Got me dripping like a honeycomb_   
_If you’ve got some sugar for me_   
_Sugar Daddy bring it home_

It isn’t until she’s standing in front of a bank of lockers in a public pool changing room in the suburbs just outside Stratford that she realizes what Carolyn meant.

First of all, she obviously did this because she knew that Villanelle would find the idea of a public pool absolutely foul, which judging by Villanelle’s look of disgust as she takes in the midlewy tiles and all of the clumps of what is most likely pubic hair on the floor, she was completely correct about.

“Can we please get out of here? There’s an old lady giving her vagina a very thorough cleaning over there and it’s making me less gay.”

There’s a huge, very complicated lock on locker 12 (a little on the nose there, Carolyn) with a three number combo, and on the back in sharpie is the code MDY. Eve thinks about Carolyn doing this because it would be what Kenny would have wanted, about what he wanted in those last months of his life. She thinks about that beautiful girl at Bitter Pill, who had made him happy and she looks at the beautiful girl next to her, who is making Eve happier right now than she really has the right to be, if happy is a big enough word for the complete feeling of freedom that she always feels now.

“MDY...” She whispers to herself. “Month, day, year.”

She puts in Kenny’s birthday, no go. Her birthday doesn’t work either. Eve stops for a moment, thinking. She looks over again at Villanelle who is making the most audacious gross out face then turns back to the lock, moving the dials to three, seventeen and ninety-three, and it pops open. She pulls out the manilla envelope inside and turns to find Villanelle has moved across to the door of the showers.

“Seriously, lady, stop. That’s not good for your pH balance! I’m just trying to save you from a yeast infection!”

They’re having a drink in a Macbeth themed pub (where anyone who says Macbeth instead of ‘the Scottish play’ has to drop a pound into a jar on the bar) and Villanelle is going through everything in the envelope. There’s everything they need for their new identities; American passports, driver’s licenses and birth certificates. She’s Marcy Tannenbaum, born in Hoboken in 1973 (New Jersey? Really, Carolyn?) and much to Villanelle’s chagrin, Jen Tannenbaum, wife of Marcy, born in 1993 in Paramus.

“Jen is the most boring name ever! Why would you ever marry me if my name was Jen? And where the hell is Paramus?” Even though she’s bitching about it, the dimple keeps flashing, so Eve knows that she’s secretly delighted at the idea of Jen Tannenbaum, wife of Marcy.

“The only problem now is what to do about money.”

“That is not a problem, Eve.” Villanelle takes a healthy swig of her Double Double Toil and Trouble vodka soda. “I told you. I have money.”

“I think that gravy train might have left the station, babe.” She uses this familiar little name so naturally that it surprises her as much as it delights Villanelle. She feels a foot hooking onto her ankle under the table.

“Phhft. You think I would ever allow myself to face any kind of future without money?” She tosses the rest of the drink back. “I’ve spent the last two years vowing that I won’t have to be poor and helpless again, and making sure that stays true.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I have money in places no one but me could ever find. And that I will take care of you. So even though I am so charmingly youthful, I get to be the sugar daddy, okay?”

The waitress, wearing a medieval dress and headpiece, appears at their table.

“Another Double Double? Or may I suggest the Too Bee, our honey infused strawberry and melon spritzer?” Villanelle stops and looks up at her, saying nothing and then…

“You look so stupid in that.”

“We’ll both take the Too Bee thank you.” Eve swoops in, and the waitress gratefully nods at her before fleeing. “You better leave her a damn good tip.”

“Don’t worry, I am an excellent tipper. Ten percent every time.”

“God, you’re an asshole.” Eve says, shaking her head.

“Pretty sure you knew that when we got married, Marcy.” She says, tipping her head to the side and grinning big. “Now tell your sugar daddy where you want to go?”

“Like after this? Back to London, I guess.”

“Think bigger, Eve.” Villanelle’s voice is low, and there is a seductive edge to it. “Anywhere your heart desires. I have the means to take us anywhere.”

“Anywhere?”

“Anywhere.”

“Do you speak Korean?”

"No, I've been too busy working on my Mandarin." Villanelle says with a shamed look on her face. “I’m a bad Mrs. Tannenbaum.”

"Well you better get on Duolingo because we're going to Korea."

___

Just imagine Villanelle saying KOREA!!! like she did CUBA!!! 

Many apologies to all the Jens out there. You all are lovely, and Villanelle just wanted something to complain about.


	5. Selling Birkin bags to rich German women

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the comments!! I've been so busy that I unfortunately don't have time to respond right now, but I am reading each one and am so grateful for your encouragement!

_Bang bang, I shot you down_   
_Bang bang, you hit the ground_   
_Bang bang, that awful sound_   
_Bang bang, my baby shot me down_

They arrive in Seoul a day later. Or is it a day and a half later? Eve has no idea, all she knows is that it’s much, much easier to travel when it’s first class, in what is basically a room to herself, and with access to a very fancy bar at the front of the huge cabin. Villanelle is less happy about the fact that they have to be separated into each of their own mini rooms until Eve sneaks her into the ridiculously opulent bathroom to press her against the door and they’re kissing and kissing and Villanelle is nipping at her bottom lip as she sneaks her hands up under Eve’s top and Eve is gasping into Villanelle’s mouth, then the stewardess knocks on the door to ask them if they need any personal lubricant and then that’s far enough for Eve.

Apparently when you fly VIP they give you unlimited free top shelf booze and a dinner on an actual china plate with silver utensils and a thick bathrobe and slippers that feel like smooshy clouds under her feet. She loves them so much she wears them right off the plane and into the airport, all the way to the cab until Villanelle tells her she looks like an escaped mental patient and that she has to take them off or else Villanelle will leave her for the next hot Korean woman she sees, and oh there’s one, and another and my god Eve, is everyone here stunningly beautiful? Eve grabs her and kisses her to shut her up, and then goddamn, they’re at it again, and Eve can’t help it, she can’t get enough of this until she notices the lecherous look the cab driver is giving them through the rear view mirror.

“Hey asshole. Don’t look at my wife Marcy like that.” Villanelle says in a low tone, baring her teeth at him.

Villanelle hadn’t taken Eve with her when she’d gone off the night before in London to collect the money from her various untraceable bank accounts. (“You think Konstantin was the only person hiding money away? Please, Eve, I’ve been doing it since they first gave me an expense account. Stash all the cash payments you get, have a varied investment portfolio, lots of properties held under a dummy corporation, and sell rare edition Birkin bags to rich German women and you’ll never have to shop at H&M ever again.”)

She had spent her time on the plane memorizing maps of Seoul, then going through all the hotels, restaurants and shopping districts until she had a long list of places that she informs Eve they will absolutely be going to. Eve knew that she would find the most ostentatious place for them to stay, but she’s still shocked as they pull up in front of the tallest building she’s ever seen. A valet runs to open the cab door, and welcomes them to the Signiel Seoul.

“Eve, did you know that this is the fifth tallest building in the world?!” Villanelle takes Eve’s hand and starts to pull her through the insanely fancy lobby. When Villanelle is informed that the presidential suite is booked, a dark look that Eve is all too familiar with crosses over her face.

Eve watches as Villanelle slips into the role of a rich, entitled, American white woman as she informs them that she called the hotel six months ago and booked this goddamn room and that it’s not her fault that they’re all a bunch of incompetent asses, that she will call the goddamn American embassy and create an international goddamn incident if she’s not in that suite in the next ten minutes, and whoever is in there right now is infringing on her God-given right to pursuit of fucking happiness as is promised to her by her country, the greatest goddamn country in the world, and that asshole in her suite has no right to infringe on her liberty like this.

“I’m afraid that the suite was booked by Mr. Murdoch’s people weeks ago, ma’am.” The poor, beleaguered concierge tells them.

“Rupert Murdoch?” Eve, who had previously been slowly backing away from this white lady tantrum that Villanelle was enacting suddenly pipes in. When the clerk nods, Eve reaches out to pull Villanelle back. “While we decide what we want to do, my wife and I are going to be at the hotel bar. Where is that located exactly?”

Even from the very back of the lounge, Eve can feel her stomach rolling as she looks out the huge windows all around her. She’s never been this high up in the air without being inside of a plane, and it’s not really feeling much safer even with 122 floors of steel below her.

It’s not just the height that is making Eve feel sick. When they’d come in, Villanelle had told her to go sit down at a table and she’d be done soon, then sauntered over to the bar to order a drink. She’d sat there and watched Villanelle fall into the role, become coquettish and coy, while still direct as she flirted with the unfairly attractive bartender. It was initially fascinating to watch this classic honey pot trick unfold in front of her, but as Villanelle’s hand starts to linger on his arm, as she looks up at him through her lashes, as she giggles airily, Eve feels a red tide in her rise, a possessiveness burning through her. She knows that Villanelle is pretending, but the visual of someone receiving that soul stripping, laser focused attention that rightly should belong to her only makes Eve dig her nails into her palms to keep from lashing out.

Eventually, finally, she walks away from the bar and heads towards the door, inclining her head to indicate that Eve should follow her. Once they’re out in the hallway, Eve watches as Villanelle pulls her hair back into a ponytail, her face full of steely purpose.

“So, what’s the plan?”

“The plan is you stay here, and I go up in the service elevator using the code that that charming young man at the bar just told me, and I get that asshole out of our room.”

“You can not kill Rupert Murdoch even if he deserves it. That is the opposite of us not becoming Bonnie and Clyde.”

“Duh, Eve, I know that. I can, however, use the little bit of info my friend at the bar also gave me about the service he uses frequently to hire underage prostitutes whenever he’s in this part of Asia and engage in a little blackmail.”

“Oh god, why am I not surprised.” She grabs Villanelle’s arm to stop her from leaving. “You don’t have to do this. I can do it.”

“Eve, you wouldn’t know how to do it and not get caught. “ She leans in, grasping Eve’s face between her hands and smiling sweetly at her. “I’ll be okay. I promise. Have a drink, and I’ll be right back.”

By that evening, they are walking into the presidential suite, while Rupert Murdoch is having his ear surgically reattached in an unmarked plane flying somewhere over the Pacific.

Villanelle shows her around their new fancy hotel suite like she’s a realtor working overtime for a sale. At first, Eve can’t really understand what’s happening, why the overkill, when she notices a look in her eye, an almost desperate need to please her, to make her happy, and she can see now that Villanelle is unconsciously seeking her approval. This is still something so new to her, that she’s made someone who loves her happy, and Eve realizes that it’s going to take some time for Villanelle to feel safe in Eve’s happiness with her.

“This place is beautiful, I love it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, you did a great job.”

Eve can see the exact moment where Villanelle believes her, she sees the moment she lets her trust in Eve take over, and my god, this kind of thing is so big and so fragile that she’s been entrusted with, and she must honor that always.

“I have something amazing to show you.” Villanelle says, pulling Eve into the bedroom.

“Wow, maybe take me out to dinner first.” Eve cracks.

“Maybe? It's happening.”

Villanelle pulls Eve through the bedroom and into one of the most beautiful bathrooms she’d ever been in, marble on every surface, floor to ceiling windows, and a huge free standing tub. Here, a blessed 24 floors down, and in a much smaller room, the view seems less intimidating

“This is why I wanted this room. Old perverts don’t deserve a bathroom this nice, only beautiful women do. Do you like it?” Villanelle looks at her eagerly, and Eve pulls her in with a hand on the back of her neck to kiss her soundly, and then she’s smiling all dimples and plump cheeks while literally bouncing as she watches Eve look around her, gobsmacked.

Eve stands at the counter looking at herself in the mirror just to see what she looks like surrounded by this much opulence. Villanelle comes to stand to her left, and déjà vu washes over her, and she knows Villanelle is feeling it too.

“That day, that first time you saw me, what did you think?” Villanelle asks quietly, like she’s scared of what Eve’s answer might be.

“I felt… I felt like you actually saw me. Just in that one moment, there was something in you, something that felt… familiar”

Villanelle is quiet in response, turning to face Eve eventually.

“I felt like I recognized you. Like I’d been looking at versions of you my whole life, and finally here was the real thing. And god, you were so sexy.” Eve feels her cheeks blush at this and finds she’s too tongue tied to reply.

As a distraction she walks over to the bathtub and turns the tap on. Without preamble, she shucks off the black turtleneck she’s been wearing for the last four days (when she wasn’t rocking that sweet robe), that despite the repeated washes in the sink still smells like gunpowder from Carolyn’s shot. She kicks off her shoes, and reaches down to pull off her dirty socks. She looks at them in her hands, at how gross they are, and suddenly realizes that she’s in the fucking presidential suite with her rich sugar daddy girlfriend and can afford to buy all the new socks she wants. She whips them at the bin under the sink and lets out a cackle.

Invigorated by this freedom, she starts to shimmy out of her pants, and looks up at the exact moment that Villanelle realizes she’s looking at Eve in a pair of her own underwear. Hey, she did it to herself.

“I refused to wear that weird shirt you tried to get me to put on just now, what makes you think I’m going to say yes to your underwear.” Eve had told her back in London.

“First of all, that was a Margiela archival piece, and secondly you are not rinsing out that pair of yours again, Eve. Just wear some of mine.”

“Oh god, I can’t imagine how expensive your fancy underwear must be. What do they cost, like thirty pounds a pair?”

“More like a hundred and thirty.”

“You spend a hundred and thirty pounds on one pair of underwear?! Jesus Christ what are they? Woven from gold thread by the hands of the gods?

“Well they weren’t made by underpaid workers in a sweatshop like the ones you’re wearing.”

Back here in the fancy bathroom, Eve can see by the slightly open mouthed gaping stare Villanelle is giving her makes that yeah, they’re worth that much for how the gauzy fabric cuts low below the gentle curve of her tummy. In fact, she’s so distracted she doesn’t notice that Eve is grinning like a devil at her.

“You enjoying this?” Eve smirks.

“Oh yes, very much.” Villanelle is giving her that pleased-as-punch grin, and starts to positively prowl up to Eve, her eyes slowly going up and down Eve’s body like she’s ready to eat her up. Eve feels a blush coming up on her cheeks at having her body so openly desired in a way that she’s never experienced before.

Suddenly the look disappears, and Villanelle visibly blanches, her eyes wide as she focuses on Eve’s shoulder, on the gunshot wound scar she’d put there.

“Hey, look at me, look at my face.”

Villanelle is unresponsive, but her face is getting slowly more and more horrified.

“I did that to you, Eve.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“I wanted to kill you. I thought I had killed you.” Her eyes flicker up to Eve’s. “God, that was so… So cruel, and so stupid and… god, Eve...”

Eve takes in a deep breath and decides that in this, she has to be truthful. This is something that Villanelle needs to own up to, because it was an attempted killing she herself chose to do, despite what prompted it.

“Yes, it was.” Villanelle pulls her lips into her mouth, and tips back her head, taking in shaking breaths through her nose. “You were doing what was drilled into you as a solution to a problem.”

“I was doing what a psychopath does.”

“A psychopath wouldn’t feel guilty about it now.”

“Eve, don’t try and rationalize this. I don’t deserve to be forgiven.”

Eve approaches her now, slowly reaching up to cup Villanelle’s cheek, getting her to face her again. She smiles kindly at her when Villanelle does.

“No, you don’t. I understand why you did it, but that’s a reason, not an excuse. What you did to me, manipulating me into doing what you wanted and then punishing me for being upset afterwards, it was wrong. My reaction was understandable, but it was cruel to deny what you were saying. But you’ve made amends so we’re going to move forward and from now on, when you see this scar, you can think about how far you’ve come. That regret can be a reminder that you’re no longer that person, and that the unselfish love you show me now proves that. Okay?”

Villanelle nods, tears now falling down her cheeks, and she looks so young in that moment, her doll-like face, her soft cheeks with their little bit of baby fat, her eyes wide, her mouth down-turned, making her look like she’s pouting.

“Now I am yours.” Eve pulls her to her finally, and Villanelle is grasping her so tightly, and Eve feels her shoulders start to shake. “And you are mine.”

_________

I made up the thing about Rupert Murdoch. He does own Fox News, and at this point that's basically a war crime so...

  
[The presidential suite at the Signiel Seoul with its insane bathroom](https://www.lottehotel.com/seoul-signiel/en/rooms/presidential-suite-room.html)


	6. Lube and Latex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the set-up-for-sex chapter! This chapter was one of my favorites to write, mainly because this is the first scene I thought of for a fic (directly after watching the finale for the first time) and built this whole story off this inspiration.

_Sweetheart_   
_The sun has set_   
_All red and primitive above our heads_   
_Blood stained on an ageless sky_   
_Wipe your tears and let the salt stains dry_   
_Let them all run dry_

Once she’s gotten a hold of herself again, Villanelle insists that she’s okay.

“Have your bath, Eve. I’ll be okay, I promise.” But Eve can see that Villanelle isn’t saying something, that her insistence on this has another meaning to it.

When Eve leaves the bathroom, wrapped in yet another ridiculously luxurious bathrobe, she finds an entire table of what might just be everything on the room service menu, as well Villanelle sitting on the bed surrounded by very fancy boxes, their lids flung open to perfectly folded items laying in tissue paper. Villanelle is settled now, the clouds lifted away, but going by the redness around Villanelle’s eyes and her stuffy nosed voice, Eve suspects that the time alone was necessary for her to work through this new wave of actualization, that she’d gone through a reckoning that she could only do by herself.

“How were you able to shop and get all this here in the half hour I was in the tub?”

“It was more like an hour. Seriously I was worried you might have drowned, but then I heard your terrible singing. Really, Eve, you don’t have the range to pull off ‘In the Air Tonight’.”

“Shut up and move over.” Eve pulls herself up on the giant California King bed. “Oh my god, this is a cloud. An actual cloud.”

“I ordered all of these things while I was on the plane. It was a lot of fun figuring out what I wanted you to wear.” She’s grinning proudly at her, but suddenly falters. “I mean, if you want to wear these things, then you can. You can choose to wear them.”

God, this fumbling, sweet girl that’s slowly being revealed is making Eve’s chest tight with so much fucking love that she feels like she can’t breathe until she touches her, until she kisses her, so she goes ahead and lets that feeling win. Villanelle’s shyly delighted face at the unexpected affection makes Eve want to kiss her like this over and over.

She reluctantly rolls out of bed and sits next to the table, huffing out a sigh of disappointment at how little of this looks like actual food, and how little of it there is in general on each perfectly presented plate. She swipes a finger through some green reduction swirled perfectly around what looks like one prawn sitting on a wee haystack of shredded white something and brings it to her mouth. It tastes like actual grass. It probably is actual grass. Gross.

She looks up when she hears Villanelle giggling, and realizes she’s been watching her disgust the whole time.

“Let’s go out tonight and have the best time ever.” Villanelle has pure mischief in her eyes as she crawls down the bed towards her. “I want to take my gorgeous girlfriend out for a fancy dinner and then to a loud, dark club where we will drink much champagne and maybe see if we can try dancing again, because apparently dancing is my thing after all.”

And Eve is there, ready to be her co-conspirator, to try new things, to live like someone with nothing to apologize for, no one to please but herself and her partner in crime.

“Let’s do it, dollface.”

Villanelle has gotten her a mix of things, basics like dresses, tops, shorts. Everything is sleek lined, warm colours like burnt orange, soft creams and rich aubergine, contrasted against some steely cold gray and icy blues, all in silks and linens, perfect for the humid climate. She also got her an actual pair of Chanel espadrilles to go with what is an actual Chanel bag, which is the most decadent, soft white leather, and the visual of herself with a quilted Chanel purse hanging on her shoulder is so different than she’d ever seen herself. Eve also spotted some black boxes full of bordello red tissue paper, and peaking inside she found a very tiny, very lacy slip that apparently is actually for her to sleep in (“not that you’ll be wearing them for long”) and some black lacy panties that look way too small (“no, Eve, they’re fine.”)

Out of one of the boxes on the other side of the bed, Villanelle pulls out a pair of panties and a bra that are incredibly delicate and Eve is afraid of ripping them with her clumsy hands that are used to the cotton underwear she gets three to a pack. She tells Villanelle as such, and then has to decide if mentioning this was a bad thing or a good thing as she watches her go down on one knee in front of her, holding the panties out for Eve to step into. Her face is sweetly innocent as she looks up at her, but when Eve drops the robe off her shoulders she watches it transform.

Now level with the most intimate part of Eve, she runs the tip of her tongue along her top lip, and Eve feels her whole body light up like the fucking Chrysler Building. Using a barely there touch on Villanelle’s shoulder for balance, she slowly lifts each foot and steps into the panties, and there’s Villanelle’s hands tracing the sides of her legs as she pulls them up to settle on Eve’s hips. She reaches over to the bed and picks up the whisper of sheer lace and satin ribbons that is this bra and stepping right up close to Eve, wraps her arms around her and clasps it closed, then guides Eve’s arms into the straps to pull them up to her shoulders.

With her face so close to Eve’s that she can feel her breath lightly fanning over her own lips, Villanelle reaches into her bra to lift each of Eve’s breasts, and with the utmost care placing them, now higher, back in the cup, trailing her fingertips over the hard pebble of her nipples under the rough feel of the lace.

After this tortuously erotic experience, Villanelle reaches into one of the boxes on the bed and pulls out a black, close fitting blazer cut narrow at the lapel and a pair of matching cigarette pants.

“What am I supposed to wear under this?”

“You’re already wearing it.”

“Oh god, I don’t know…” Eve hesitates.

“Just put it on, baby.” And then she can feel the shivers go through her being called this, and so mesmerized, she slips the blazer on, then the pants. Villanelle goes down on her knee again to help Eve step into a pair of shoes with that distinctive red bottom, oxford style with a chunky heel.

“Look.” Villanelle gestures to the mirror behind Eve and she turns and actually gasps at herself.

She feels herself settling into what the clothes are bringing to her, and she looks elegant, and powerful, and the skin in the deep opening of the blazer is a part of herself she has hardly ever shown. Villanelle stands up, leaning forward to rest her chin on Eve’s shoulder, like the little devil she is. Hands spanning her waist, she gives Eve the most knowing look.

“Beautiful.” She says simply.

That thrill, knowing that Villanelle chose this, that she knows Eve and her body so well, this time it’s even more because this, this is something that suits Eve perfectly, and shows her that Villanelle hadn’t picked this out for her own vision of Eve, but for who she knows Eve really is.

They have dinner at some Michelin rated restaurant that says it serves Korean-French fusion but Eve can’t recognize a single thing on the table besides the wonderfully large glass of very, very good wine and then the bingsu covered in elaborately cut fruit for dessert. She’s even more irritated with this place because the table is blocking her from seeing all of Villanelle’s curves in a dress that Eve has decided defines the term fuckable.

She’d walked out of the bathroom earlier in a knee length, long sleeved, high necked black latex dress that clung so tightly to every inch of her, molding her curves to the extreme with the slick shine of the fabric outlining them, so tight she can see the indent of her bellybutton and the shape of her nipples and it’s even more revealing than if she was totally naked. Some uncontrollable thing inside Eve had bubbled to the surface and she took in a sharp hiss.

“That’s precisely what I was going for.” Villanelle had smirked at her, tossing a bottle of something to her. Eve left out a huff of laughter when she saw it was lube, and then she’s there, purring all up in Eve’s ear. “And in case this isn’t visual enough for you, Eve, I want you to think about all of my naked skin all shiny and slicked up in that so I could get this dress on.”

Eve knew she was being teased but wouldn't let Villanelle win (yet) so she’d swallowed down the reaction to this insanely sexy image to pull away and walk over to the bedside table to put the lube there.

“Probably going to need this later.”

“Not if I do my job right.” Villanelle pushed her tongue into her cheek and wiggled her eyebrows and Eve broke, laughing and shaking her head.

Then Villanelle, with her hair in perfectly laid sleek and shiny peek-a-boo waved curls over the side of her face and laying like a golden waterfall over her shoulders, had stepped into a pair of Louboutin stilettos with a pointe shoe shaped toe, then finished it with a blood red lip and okay, she probably wasn’t going to need any help in the lube department because her girl is looking like a fucking fetish drawing come to life and well hell, looks like Eve’s into that kinda thing now.

“Where are we going now?” Eve asks as she finishes her second bowl of bingsu.

“I think it’s time for you to meet other women with the same interests as you.”

“So we’re going to a prison?”

“As someone who has been to prison, yeah, where we’re going isn’t too much different in terms of girl on girl sex.”

This is how they end up in a bar full of queer women (“not just female-identifying people, Eve, come on, gender is a social construct!”) in Jong-no, the queer enclave in Seoul, on what is purported as being 80’s night.

“I made sure it was music you would know, Eve,” Villanelle says cheekily, legitimately squealing when Eve reaches out to smack her ass in retaliation for the sass and wow wasn’t that an amazing feeling.

They spin each other around, laughing, and clasp the other tightly, throw back their heads to sing at the top of their lungs to Love Shack (and who would have guessed that her girl would know every word) with a roomful of fucking beautiful people, and Villanelle is dancing like a huge dork, hands flailing with excitement as she bounces up and down and they both start laughing, laughing out of sheer delight.

Eve sees Villanelle’s face lit up by the lights moving their way over the crowd, and she looking at Eve like she’s the most amazing thing she’s ever seen and Eve never ever dreamed she could be loved like this, could be seen as so glorious, so wondrous, and she thinks about what her face must look like, how she must be reflecting that back full force at Villanelle. She feels free, younger than she has in years and okay, old gross straight dudes, she can see the allure of having a young, hot girlfriend.

Annie Lennox’s Primitive starts playing and they’re at the tea dance again, wrapped up in each other as they dance in slow circles. When Villanelle press her cheek to her forehead Eve feels dampness. Eve pulls back to see tears on her cheeks, and Villanelle rolls her eyes at herself, sticking her tongue out of the corner of her, embarrassed. Eve grasps her chin to tip her head down so she can kiss her softly and she whispers I love you, I love you so much. It’s the first time she’s said it out loud, and so definitively, and Villanelle pulls in a shuddery breath and me too, Eve, me too, so much, I love you so much. They both get a little weepy, pressing their foreheads together until they both have their breath again and then they’re kissing through the tears. And then the moment is broken by the pumping bass of Animotion’s Obsession and it’s so fucking perfect for them that they both start laughing all over again.

They end up in the VIP section sitting next to a semi-famous blonde actress who’s making out with a devastatingly beautiful Korean woman who's dressed in a neon patterned suit and Eve can’t help but thinking of what her and Villanelle must look like to other people, her and her gorgeous girl dressed so provocatively, so fixated on each other. Watching this insanely hot couple, Eve sees how all the eyes are not on the kinda famous girl but instead on her infinitely cool and confident partner, and she recognizes that the blonde is happily serving as the ultimate accessory, a show of power for her girlfriend. She looks down at her suited self and realizes what Villanelle had done tonight, how she’d dressed Eve as the swaggering top and made herself into the highly feminine status symbol for her, and she feels this power flowing through her, a confidence in her own skin that she’s never felt before.

They’ve long since moved on to a bottle of champagne so expensive that immediately after Villanelle ordered it they were told that there was a table in the VIP section for them. Villanelle is up-ending the last of it into her flute then tossing it back, the long line of her throat exposed and suddenly Eve feels herself turning carnivorous. She moves in to press her whole side to Villanelle, wrapping her arm around the back of the couch, behind her.

“Tell me something naughty.” Eve purrs low into her ear. Villanelle trips just a bit at this, shocked, and covers it instantly, lest Eve see that she’d one upped her.

“Hmmm, what should I tell you? Did you know you can’t wear anything under latex clothing?” She leans back and parts her legs a little and now Eve has to deal with the fact that there’s nothing between her and Villanelle’s naked pussy and wow, there’s a word that just naturally comes out of her now. “Now it’s your turn to tell me something naughty.”

Eve lifts her one leg to rest her calf on her other knee and she takes a moment to just look at Villanelle before speaking in a loud enough voice that anyone around them could hear her.

“The heart, inside of that hideous fucking teddy bear you left for me? I pressed it against my clit and rubbed and rubbed until I came from the sound of your voice between my legs.”

“Fuck,” Villanelle says, dazed. “Fuck, Eve.”

Then it’s not just one beautiful blonde and her hot top of a girlfriend making out in the VIP section, but all Eve can register is the smooth feeling of the latex clinging to Villanelle’s body, how it feels to run her hands over those hills and valleys of breast to waist to hip, how she can feel Villanelle’s nipples getting so hard that they’re sharp points through the slick material and it’s much, much better to have a barful of beautiful queer women admiring how hot her and her girl look together instead of leering men who call you lesbos.

_____

Okay here's the fashion in this chapter - [Chanel espadrilles](https://www.chanel.com/sg/fashion/p/G29762X01000C7600/espadrilles-lambskin/) and [boy flap cream leather bag](https://theluxurycloset.com/women/chanel-cream-quilted-leather-medium-boy-flap-bag-p134393), Agent Provocateur [lacy nightie ](https://www.agentprovocateur.com/carline-slip-1305)and La Perla [Brazilian lace and tulle panties](https://us.laperla.com/black-stretch-leavers-lace-and-tulle-brazilian-briefs/), the [tulle bra and matching panties](https://laperla.com/black-sheer-strech-tulle-underwired-bra-with-floral-embroidery/) set Eve wears for their night under the YSL [Le Smoking blazer and cigarette pants](https://poshmark.com/listing/YSL-Menswear-Black-Tuxedo-Style-Jacket-5c3912ecfe5151b461023c4d), with the Louboutin [black Oxford heels](https://modesens.com/product/CHRISTIAN-LOUBOUTIN-Coleslaw-100-Version-Black-Leather-Women-Shoes-Christian-Louboutin-1111271/), Villanelle's William Wilde [couture latex dress](https://www.williamwilde.com/collections/latex-dresses/products/latex-opium-dress-bw2018) and Louboutin [Lolo Ballerina 120 satin stilettos](https://leprix.com/shop/christian-louboutin/pumps/christian-louboutin-black-satin-platform-lolo-ballerina-high-heel-pumps-sz-39). And Eve wasn't far off saying she looked like a fetish drawing considering Villanelle decided to use John Willie's [Sweet Gwendoline](http://bdzoom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Gwendoline-1_pl02.jpg) and [these two on the right ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/56781833@N06/31836181252/sizes/l/) as her inspiration. 

[I've also made a Spotify playlist of all the songs I'm quoting, ones mentioned and other songs that have inspired me while I've been writing.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Mag12KsN7BXcRNhw6vmqe?si=-4b2fcctQA-OUvoWbPVabA)


	7. There's My Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congrats! The burn is over! The next three chapters all have sex in them!

_I want to be the only one that makes you come, running_  
_I want to be your lover_  
_I want to turn you on, turn you out_  
_All night long make you shout_

They end up not leaving the club until the second bottle of champagne is done, and Eve is so hungry Villanelle can actually hear her stomach growling over the last song they play (Tainted Love and they both burst out laughing again.)

“I am not being a good wife and taking care of you. You are hungry and I need to provide for you.” Villanelle declares as they leave the club with all the gravitas the bubbly drunk she is will allow her to have. Eve giggles, actually giggles, and then Villanelle giggles, and god Eve loves that, loves what her giggle sounds like, her true giggle, and this beautiful girl is hers, and she loves her and…

“Where should we go, Marcy?”

“Come on, let’s eat some actual Korean food.”

This is how they end up in a street food market, sitting in front of a table full of things that Eve had shrieked in delight when she saw being prepared. She’s pointing out the tteokkochi rice cakes with spicy red sauce, Korean fried chicken bathed in honey chili sauce so good that it revivals the crack chicken in London, panjeon filled with prawn and so many different kinds of dumplings.

“Mine are better.” Eve says as she holds out a kim chi one for Villanelle to try.

Villanelle had trailed behind her, holding her hand, sweetly delighted at hearing Eve speaking in rapid fire Korean to the people manning the stalls, making them laugh, lobbying back when one grinning old man asks her what her sexy friend’s name was with “Her name is MINE! Sorry!” By the time Villanelle has tried everything, Eve alternating bites between herself and Villanelle off her own fork, they’ve found something sweet to eat in the cab on the way back to the hotel, they’ve sobered up enough to actualize what’s finally about to happen.

They’re silent in the cab, words seeming unneeded now. Eve feels the nerves starting to work up, and it must show on her face because there’s Villanelle’s hand coming to her, taking hers, squeezing it. She leans over and Eve feels every nerve ending needing her to be closer.

“I’m going to make you come harder than you ever have in your life.” She whispers into Eve’s ear and if she ain’t the serpent himself, Eve doesn’t know who else she could be.

Once they’re walking through the hotel lobby, Eve moves so there’s a good amount of distance between them. Villanelle looks over with a look of worry, but when she sees the look Eve’s giving her, she knows what’s happening. That distance, that’s their foreplay.

Eve leans up against the side of the elevator, leaning back with her hands on the bar behind her, regarding Villanelle with a sly grin. Villanelle returns it with a challenge in her own smile, cocking a hip to the side and slowly running her hands over the shape of her body outlined by her dress just as Eve had done earlier. The door opens into their suite (the fucking rich, man) and Eve saunters out and into the front room, turning around to face Villanelle.

“I’m going to need you out of that dress immediately, babygirl.” Eve says, hands in her pockets.

She expects an argument on being told what to do but Villanelle just wordlessly turns around and pulls her hair over her shoulder to expose the long hidden zipper.

Eve reaches out and slowly pulls the zipper down until it splits the dress down the back completely and she can literally peel the dress off of Villanelle’s slick with sweat body, and then she’s there, completely bared to her. Villanelle turns towards her again, kicking off her heels so she’s almost at eye level, and takes her face into her hands, pressing her lips to Eve’s, insistently but not demandingly, then traveling down to the crook of Eve's throat, behind her ear, inhaling her scent deep into her.

She pulls back to push the jacket from Eve’s shoulders, then runs her fingers over the strong lines of Eve's arms, fingers gently tracing along the lean planes of Eve’s back until they find the hook of her bra and undoes it swiftly, pulling it off her body. With a quick flick of her wrist she undoes Eve’s pants and goes down on her knees, untying her shoes and pulling them off, then helping her shimmy out of her pants.

In a mirror of earlier when she’d been putting them on, she hooks her fingers onto Eve’s panties and pulls them off slowly, so slowly, and Eve knows she can already see how wet she is for her. Villanelle makes a little hum sound, a one sided smile, and then before Eve even realizes what’s happening, she’s leaning forward to give a little kitten lick along her slit, and this barely there touch is like an electric jolt, making Eve jump and gasp and instinctively pull away. But Villanelle follows her, hands on Eve’s hips to hold her steady, and she leans forward to lightly blow on her wetness, causing a shiver to roll through her.

“Go sit on the couch, baby.” Villanelle says in a low tone that is so commanding that Eve is walking over and sitting down before she even registers what she’s doing. Villanelle turns and on all fours, slinks towards her, and Eve knows that hungry gleam in her eyes, that predator smile. She’s about to be devoured.

Once she’s in front of her, Villanelle rises up onto her knees, reaching out to grab Eve by the hips, pulling them to the edge of the couch like Eve weighs nothing, and fuck, fuck, god, how many times has Eve came and came thinking about Villanelle physically overpowering her with such ease. Eve completely gives in, leaning back to rest her upper back against the cushions behind her. Villanelle parts Eve’s knees and leans forward, her eyes looking at Eve’s naked body spread before her like it’s a feast, and really, that’s exactly what it is.

Even as turned on as she already is, Eve can feel a low lying anxiety kicking up in her, one that always used to accompany her whenever she would be with a new partner when she was younger.

“I just… I want you to know that it’s hard for me to come sometimes, especially during oral sex.” She haltingly informs Villanelle. “Not that I don’t enjoy oral sex, it’s just that…”

Villanelle leans forward to kiss her, stopping her words.

“Baby, I’m going to take such good care of you from now on.” She says with complete sincerity and confidence and Eve realizes that the way she is about to be fucked is going to be completely new in more ways than one.

It’s almost surreal, that first moment of Villanelle leaning in, and then Eve’s looking down at her blonde head between her thighs and god how long has Eve waited for this, thought about it, dreamed of it and now--

All conscious thought instantly leaves Eve’s head as soon as Villanelle trails her tongue deep, a long thorough lap, and then again, and again, then maddeningly pulling back. Eve lets out a whimper, and she’s licking through her again and again, and Eve sinks into it, feels things inside her starting to loosen, and right as Eve is feeling the first roll, Villanelle pulls back again. Without thought Eve’s hips buck up, seeking her, and there’s the purring little laugh in the back of Villanelle’s throat, and it’s fucking velvet caressing her.

Another whimper from Eve and Villanelle gives her just a little lick, keeping her mouth close, and her hands have locked Eve’s hips into place, so firmly that no matter how much she squirms she can’t move her pussy any closer to Villanelle. God, she’s never made noises like this in her life, panting, rough exhales as she feels an ache starting to build deep in her sex, and she needs something to rut against, some kind of pressure.

Villanelle coos in teasingly fake sympathy, and Eve knows now what she is waiting for.

“Please…” Eve breathes out, “please, I need…. Villanelle, please…”

Villanelle makes a little noise of satisfaction, and finally, thank you fucking god, her hand moves between Eve’s legs, opening her up, and her tongue is lapping through her, again and again, slowly starting to centre itself in circles around Eve’s clit. Eve is unwittingly moving her hips up towards her tongue until Villanelle’s free hand reaches up and rests on Eve’s stomach, and with gentle pressure pressing her down, and Eve is instantly still.

As if to reward her, Villanelle finally starts to flick her tongue over Eve’s clit, which is throbbing with each heartbeat, each lick, and suddenly she’s falling into it, already, and she’s slipping out of her own brain, and it’s all just her body, she can feel every part of her. The flicks on her clit are making her feel like she’s climbing a steep crescendo, and, god everything feels so bright and close and, no, that’s not possible, she wouldn’t already be, she would never come this fast and fuck, fuck, oh god, babygirl, fuck, oh fuck!

And then she’s making these noises, shocked noises, and it keeps coming, she’s still coming and still Villanelle is there, prodding her as she spasms, and, oh god, wait...

“No…. it’s too much…. I can only ever once….”

Villanelle leans back just enough to get Eve to look down, and Jesus fuck, her chin is slick with her, her lips already reddened around the edges, and she says in that same no-argument tone “Eve, let it happen” and she will, she wants to, she has to.

Villanelle is relentless. She pushes Eve through her second orgasm on the crest of the first one, and then slows her pace, back to long, leisurely licks, occasionally ghosting over Eve’s hyper-stimulated clit, making her jerk like she has a live wire on the tip of her tongue. Just when Eve thinks that this might be over, the licks become more rapid, slowly becoming more aggressive until Eve is reaching down to grab a fistful of Villanelle’s long blonde hair, pushing her face into her pussy, and she’s beyond words now, it’s all seething gasps and fucks and oh my god and babygirl and please, please!

And holy shit, she’s coming again, she’s coming again, holy fuck, holy fuck. Everything starts to pull apart inside her, and she is literally seeing stars behind her closed lids, and she’s released the death grip on Villanelle’s hair, and is gently and fumblingly patting her head, saying stop, okay, okay, stop.

Villanelle pulls back, but not completely. She sneaks forward to ever so gently run the very tip of her tongue along Eve’s clit again, there but barely, and at first Eve is pulling away, jolted but that insistent gentle pressure starts to feel like a good idea, and she slows, goes still, lulled by this tenderness, falling into it. Things start to go blurry around the edges, and there’s nothing but this moment, the feeling of Villanelle lapping at her. She feels more than hears Villanelle’s purr of approval and she goes blissfully pliant, finally giving in.

“There’s my baby,” Villanelle murmurs to her and Eve is rewarded, finally there’s more concentrated touches, opening her back up until she feels Villanelle’s fingers start to push into her, as slowly as they can with so much of Eve’s slick to guide the way, and then the licks are there, and the fingers are crooking upwards and pushing in and rubbing, and her tongue is going faster, and then harder, and her fingers are in so fucking deep, and there’s a place, deep inside Eve, and she can feel it building, it’s coming, and then it’s rising out of her and she’s calling out words that she can’t comprehend, her back arching as her body goes rigid, riding over this wave and then on it, she’s there, god, she’s just there and fuck, fuck….

Eve feels her thoughts slowed down to drops of syrupy bliss, and she feels utterly and completely cared for in that moment, and it bubbles up in her chest, that love, love for Villanelle, her Villanelle and she’s aching for her, she needs her, and blindly she’s reaching out, hoping, searching in her floating haze, then Villanelle is there, pulling Eve down to her. Eve moves bonelessly, her knees to her chest as Villanelle tucks her sideways into her lap, wrapping her one arm around her body while her other one caresses across her brow, her cheek, her lips, her throat. She holds Eve so tenderly, touches her so sweetly, that in the vulnerability of that moment Eve can feel it, that hidden tenderness in Villanelle, unwittingly showing. Eve feels completely protected, surrounded, loved and she floats in this amber gleam, pressing into Villanelle as much as she’s being held tightly.


	8. Total Freakshow

_You let me feel your danger_   
_I let you make this feeling clear here_   
_I want the touch of your charms_   
_The heat of your breath_

Eve floats to consciousness the next morning to the smell of coffee and the sound of paper rustling. She blinks her eyes open to see Villanelle sitting up in bed, wearing a little scrap of black lace that might be called a nightie if you were feeling generous. She has her finger hooked into the handle of her china cup and is reading the newspaper with the most fucking adorable furrow between her brows.

“Checking your stocks?” Eve’s voice is a little raspy this early in the morning, and she can tell it affects Villanelle by the look she gives her.

“Doing well as always. Lots of money for Marcy and Jen to retire on.” She turns back to the paper. “I am reading about this little girl in America who killed her mom’s boyfriend after he raped her and she was put in prison for it. This is bullshit, Eve.”

“If only there was someone out there to make things right.” Eve says drily, and sees the moment Villanelle understands.

“I don’t know…” She looks genuinely torn and Eve can’t put her through that.

“Who says that it would be you?” And they silently regard one another, another conversation for the future starting to form. “Did you answer the door for room service wearing just that?”

“Yes and I pretended to be a prostitute you’d hired when I did.” Her voice goes up an octave, and in an American accent she says, “breakfast was a part of our deal, right?”

“Yeah and then you gotta get out of her because my wife Jen’s going to be home soon.”

“She sounds hot,” Villanelle grins back at her.

The tacky around the edges sensations of last night start to reappear in Eve’s mind, and as she studies Villanelle’s profile traced by the sun coming in through the window she realizes something.

“You didn’t come last night.” Eve’s back straightens instantly and she’s sitting up, the sheets falling away from her and Villanelle’s dimples are flashing as she observes all this naked flesh.

“Yes I did. Did you not notice?”

“When? I mean, how?”

“Oh sweetheart,” Villanelle is making this over exaggerated expression of deep pity. “Someone was so out of it she didn’t even know.”

Then she’s putting down her cup, throwing the paper over the edge of the bed, and prowling up on Eve, pressing close enough to whisper in her ear.

“There at the end. I had my fingers in you at the same time I had fingers in myself. I was fucking both of us at the same time.”

“Jesus fuck.”

And then Eve is launching herself at Villanelle, pushing her back against the huge padded headboard, lifting up to straddle her lap.

“How much does this ridiculous thing cost?” She asks as she runs her hands over the surprisingly soft lace that highlight more than hide all of Villanelle’s nakedness underneath.

“About 300 pounds.”

“Jesus Christ.” Eve is shaking her head, and just when she knows Villanelle isn’t expecting it, she grabs each side of the deep decolletage and rips, rendering the flimsy thing in half and roughly pulling it from her shoulders. “Looks like you’re going to need another.”

Villanelle has a slowly dawning expression of pleased smugness, and she is kissing Eve, with no small amount of aggression, and Eve feels everything awakening again.

“Oh, Eve, I have many, many more.”

When they manage to get out of bed and eat the now cold pancakes that Villanelle had ordered from room service, Eve pulls her down to perch on her knees, much to Villanelle’s delight. She gets some pancake on her fork and feeds it delicately to Villanelle, the most delicious little laugh coming out of her as she does.

“Did you have a good time last night, baby?” She asks Eve, bending to quickly kiss the syrup from Eve’s lips.

“I did. I think going to a club together should be something we do more often. I can't believe we've never been to one together before....”

And then it both hits them at the same time, they both remember when they have been in a nightclub together, and with a look of quickly dawning horror on her face, Villanelle jumps up and away from Eve.

“Oh my god. Oh my god, Eve. Your friend! Your friend, I killed him! I killed him, Eve, Eve…” and she’s flailing blind now, like a bird with a broken wing, lost in the midst of this actualization of what she had wrought.

Eve jumps up and tries to pull her back to her but Villanelle refuses the comfort, looking at Eve with huge eyes full of tears and regret.

“Hey, listen to me,” Eve reaches out and is able to gently take Villanelle’s face into her hands. “Look at me. Your hand was guided by other forces that night.”

“But I did it!”

“I know you did, and I know why you had to. And I have chosen to forgive you.” She makes sure Villanelle is really seeing her and says again, “I choose to forgive you. You’re forgiven.”

Villanelle’s face breaks at this, and her knees go out from under her and it’s all Eve can do to get her on the floor next to the bed, and she’s sitting on the bed, and Villanelle is there, moving blindly, until she’s sobbing into Eve’s lap. She gently smooths Villanelle’s hair back as she cries and cries, quietly shushing her, and she watches as it all drains out of her.

“Do you really forgive me?” She asks finally in a broken voice.

“I do. You were a weapon, and even though they pulled this out of you, you weren’t the one in control.”

Villanelle goes quiet, and done with her tears, she lays her head on Eve’s lap, and Eve can see her contemplating this.

“I suppose one day I will believe this, but right now, it seems too soon. I think I have to live with this for a while, Eve. But I trust you. I know you wouldn’t tell me something that wasn’t true. So I will try and live like it is, until hopefully one day it will be to me.”

Just when Eve thinks that Villanelle has revealed all of herself to Eve, she does something like this, something so unexpected and new, and god she loves her, adores her and she takes her beautiful face into her hands and bends down to kiss her soundly again and again.

“Thank you so much for that trust, my sweet girl.” She murmurs and Villanelle glows, positively glows.

They end up spending the afternoon in the high end department store that’s attached to the monstrosity of a skyscraper that they’re staying at, because Villanelle had told her that she wanted to buy Eve some more things.

(“More? What the hell do you call all the stuff you got yesterday?”

“Eve, this is for our life together and you’re going to need many many more sexy suits because I very much enjoyed all the BDE you had last night.”)

The lofty look of rich entitlement that Villanelle puts on (for this here is Villanelle, a venus fly trap playing games to get what she wants) as they walk into the store immediately attracts the members of the sales staff. Eve, wearing her new Chanel espadrilles and in what must be some recognizable brand dress she’s wearing, gets to experience for the first time in her life the feeling of a clothing store being a welcoming, pleasant experience.

Soon she’s following Villanelle around the many floors as Villanelle pulls items from racks that only seem to have five things on each one, which seems wasteful to Eve, but she guesses this must be a rich person thing. As Villanelle pulls out each thing, she immediately hands it to the sales girl next to her, while talking to her about the only silhouettes and what colours and what length and what fit would be right.

“I’m thinking Philip Lim, maybe some tailored Yves Saint Laurent men’s suits for professional, some Cushine for evening. Lots of lower cut fronts because she has the most beautiful chest and I want to be able to look at it all I want.” Villanelle says slyly at Eve over her shoulder.

“Professional? What professional? I’m unemployed, remember?”

“I think your career is just starting.” Villanelle says, with complete levity. Suddenly, something catches her eye, and her and Villanelle both turn to look at the same time.

There’s a rather uneasy looking girl, probably around sixteen, next to them. She’s wearing a pair of dark jersey pants that have a droopy crotch down to the knees.

“Why are you wearing those disgusting pants? They make you look like you shit yourself.” Villanelle says with the utmost authority. The girl looks up, startled.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said.” Villanelle looks down to see she’s also wearing beige sneakers with a bulbousness bubbling sole. “And those Yeezys are a nightmare. Why are you dressed like this? You look like you are dressed like this because you lost a bet. Did you lose a bet?

“These Yeezys cost a thousand dollars. I was on a waitlist for them for three months.”

“OH MY GOD!” And she’s literally shouting HA HA HA.

“Kendall Jenner has a pair!”

“Okay, you need to shut up and listen.” Villanelle holds her hand up in front of the girl’s face and obviously she’s starting to recognize that this person can’t be convinced because she does actually stop talking. “Let me ask you something. Are you a tiktok influencer or an Instagram influencer? Because a girl your age apparently only has those two options in life right now.”

“Instagram is for whiny millennials. Zoomers are all on TikTok because it’s the best.”

“Zoomers?” Eve says, incredulous, but Villanelle is undeterred.

“Follow me.” Villanelle says, and she starts marching to the other side of the floor they’re on to a section of clothing that looks like someone tripped and dumped photoshop all over it. Everything is cut off photo prints and horrible garish colours and big puffy skirts and t-shirts with the giant word Moschino on it, whatever the fuck that means. Villanelle starts to pull out dresses printed with gigantic crisps labels that look like some kind of nightmare to Eve. She hands each one to the girl who is looking at Villanelle in her perfectly styled, simple but effortlessly chic outfit of a white t-shirt with the word OFF just under the neckline tucked into a pair of perfectly faded high waisted 80s Levis that make her ass look like a peach and high heeled boots covered in studs with a giant chain link as heels now like she’s some kind of deity.

“There. Now you will look cute, and fun, and very cool. No more saggy clothes.” Villanelle says, and flashing her dimples, reaches out to pet the girl’s head like she was a good puppy.

“Are you ready to start trying on?” The sales girl is still there like Villanelle’s shadow. She speaks in perfect English, which she probably is required to have to suit the needs of all the white tourists she has to help, and doesn’t that make Eve seethe more than just a bit.

“I want to buy her some of the tiniest, most expensive lingerie ever,” Villanelle announces brazenly in front of everyone, smirking at Eve.

“The more expensive, the better.” Eve is completely on board with this now that she knows the results of said pricey panties.

“How many pieces of Fleur du Mal do you have right now?” Villanelle asks. “Bring all of them, as well as the Spring La Perla collection. Do you have some Bordelle pieces?”

Then they’re taken back to a private dressing room, this massive oval shaped room with a large partitioned changing area, a bar, massive leather armchairs, and a platform perfectly lit in front of a huge trifold mirror. Upon entering Eve is handed a flute of champagne and small pieces of intricately cut fruit on a gold platter.

“This definitely is going to be less traumatic than Primark,” Eve says as the sales girl almost lovingly escorts her to the change room where all of the items are divided on to multiple racks.

It hits Eve calling her a girl when she is clearly a full grown woman is actually demeaning.

“What’s your name?” Eve asks her in Korean.

“Ha-eun.” She looks relieved. “I gotta say, good job getting one of these rich Russian asshole women to hire you. They usually only go for other young women when they hire an escort.”

Eve stops dead in her tracks as this statement hits her.

“You should see the things she makes me do in the bedroom.” She says back to the girl, winking at her. “Total freakshow.”

Of course the things that Villanelle has chosen, in every instance, work beautifully on her. The suits are cut in a way that makes her look powerful, cool edged and just unique enough for her to stand out and make an impression. The clingy, low cut whisper-thin silk dresses make her look seductive with the just the right hint of slutty. The fabrics on each piece are beyond any that have touched Eve’s skin before now. The linens and silks are so light, the wool is so soft that you barely know that it’s wool at all, the polyester is so well made it hardly feels synthetic at all.

“Oh my god Eve, these are not polyester, this is viscose and modal and tencel and other natural fibre based fabrics that feel synthetic and why are you smiling at me like that?” Villanelle says as Eve stalks towards her.

“Kiss me, you little snob.” She says and now she gets to see those dimples flashing at her right before she presses her lips to hers. “Now come help me out of this dress.”

“Okay!” Villanelle crows, jumping to her feet, grabbing Eve’s hand and dragging her to the change area.

As soon as the door closes Villanelle is on her, pressing her back against the wall, her body flush with Eve’s and she can’t help but arch into the warmth. Villanelle’s face is so close to her, she can feel each breath against her lips.

“I meant help me out of this dress so I can change.” Eve whispers.

“Hmm, did you really though?” She feels Villanelle murmur against her mouth and then she’s being kissed so completely, with such sudden hunger, that she is gasping into it, her own passion starting to rise up, matching Villanelle’s.

The body pressing hers to the wall starts to undulate, and Eve can feel her hipbone pressing against her, into where Eve needs that pressure the most, and fuck she’s so insanely and suddenly aroused that it’s heady and overwhelming. She feels Villanelle’s hand start to find its way under the dress, skating up Eve’s inner thigh, and then fingertips brushing over her through her panties. Villanelle pulls back, and she has the most delighted look on her face.

“Eve, you’re already so wet for me.” She says smiling at her and well shit, looks like Eve is even wetter now at hearing Villanelle say this filthy thing to her.

Villanelle presses her open lips to Eve’s open mouth, and they start to share the same slowly increasing gasps. Eve feels the fingers pulling her panties to the side, and it’s so feather-light, the touch ghosting up and down her slit, so barely there that Eve feels shivers over her whole body. She starts to make these noises unconsciously, little moans, no, more like mewls, and Villanelle has her, has her held so gently and totally in her control, and this makes something in Eve start to loosen, start to float away. It’s almost distantly she feels the fingers pushing into her so easily, and the relief of this, of finally having Villanelle inside her again turns the mewl into a groan that Villanelle swallows up with a kiss.

“Shh, baby, shh.” She whispers into Eve’s mouth. “You must be quiet or else I’ll stop. Do you want me to stop?”

And Eve is frantically shaking her head and pressing her lips closed because that’s the last thing she wants here in this dreamy world she’s currently floating in.

“There you go, baby.” She’s praised and rewarded by the fingers starting to curl, crooking in, and the tips running along that spot in her, the one that most men, Niko included, only ever found on accident, but this time it’s with all of Villanelle’s focused intent, and it’s just as killer as when it’s focused on someone who is about to die.

Everything starts to gather in Eve, each nerve ending, each throb and she feels like she’s nothing but these fingers she’s starting to ride, the aching tips of her breasts rasping against Villanelle’s as she does. All of the sensations are building, and building, and then Eve feels more than hears Villanelle mouthing an unconscious ‘fuck, fuck, fuck’ of her own arousal against her lips and then it’s just fucking over for her.

Villanelle puts the side of her free hand between Eve’s teeth and she bites down hard, huffing her way silently through this insane orgasm, and then she’s liquid, pouring down the wall until she feels the fingers pulled from her, and arms going around her, strong enough to hold up her entire weight, and for fucksake her pussy is throbbing again. She leans into this feeling of being safe and cared for and well fucked and she’s just floating, floating, until she feels light kisses peppering her face.

“Hello, Eve, hello,” Villanelle is sing-songing to her. “Welcome back, Eve, welcome back.”

“Wha…”

“You are experiencing subspace, baby, and of course you are because I am amazing at sex and because you are my baby and I love you and I will fuck you better than anyone will ever fuck you.” Villanelle is cooing at her with a smug smile on her face.

“I’m….” Eve takes a second to remember how words work and fails miserably. “I love you too.”

Villanelle’s whole face lights up and Eve realizes that she needs to tell her more often that she loves her, because even though she knows she believes her, Villanelle still needs to hear someone who means it to say it.

There’s a tentative tap on the door that snaps them both back to reality, and Eve flushes dark red.

“Oh my god, she knows what we’re doing in here.” She whispers, horrified.

“Of course she does. She’s probably jealous that I’m not her.” Villanelle raises her hand to lick the wetness, Eve’s wetness, off her fingers and before Eve can react, she’s kissing her and Eve can taste it too, what she tastes like when she’s mixed with Villanelle.

She’s left leaning against the wall as Villanelle goes over and opens the door, looking completely shameless despite how swollen her lips are and how obviously in disarray Eve is.

“Is there anything else you need, madams?” Ha-eun asks, her cheeks now as red as Eve’s.

“We’ll take everything here. Now I would like to see your jewelry salon. I hear your collection of white sapphire settings are fabulous.” Villanelle turns to look at Eve over her shoulder. “You stay here, baby, have another drink and I’ll come back when I’m done.”

Eve would pretty much agree to anything at this point. Ha-eun nods rapidly and uses her little ear piece to call ahead and let them know Villanelle is coming. With a quick kiss for Eve, Villanelle is out of the room and oh god, now she’s standing in an uncomfortable silence with this poor girl, woman, and fuck this.

“You wanna drink, Ha-eun?” She asks, going behind the bar to look at all of the top shelf liquor available to them.

“Oh, no, I can’t, I’m not allowed to drink with the client.” She giggles nervously. “I’m not even allowed to sit.”

“Well that’s some bullshit.” Eve pulls out another bottle of champagne from the fancy steel and glass minifridge. “My john just bought what I can only imagine to be a small fortune of stuff from this place, so if you get in shit for it, they can come to her.”

This is how Villanelle comes to find them a half hour later, tipsy, Korean barely discernible from their hysterically laughing, and now Eve knows all about Ha-eun’s stupid boyfriend, and her student loans and her little brother’s obsession with Jungkook, and as soon as she sees Villanelle come back in she tells her to give her 10,000 pounds so she can help Ha-eun outta debt.

______

So many looks in this, here's a link to them all: We got the [La Perla lace slip](https://us.laperla.com/dark-grey-lace-slip/) Eve rips off of V, the [$3300 Alaia cotton gabardine dress](https://www.net-a-porter.com/en-ca/shop/product/alaia/cotton-gabardine-maxi-dress/1110322?gclsrc=aw.ds&cm_mmc=Google-ProductSearch-CAN--c-_-NAP_EN_CA_PLA-_-NAP+-+CA+-+GS+-+Designer+-+Class_Clothing+-+High+-+BT--Clothing+-+Dresses_AM&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgo_5BRDuARIsADDEntQy4RMlbvZuTfCzl2cxZabRxdFgHYT3spCt-vi4YNWA1seU3KCbtOYaAjW3EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds) (which V would have had taken up to the knee) Eve shops in and the [Off White tshirt](https://streetwearmuse.com/off-white-tulip-t-shirt-white), [80's slim leg Levis](http://wheretoget.it/link/2981008) and [Balmain boots](https://www.nordstrom.com/s/balmain-oxan-spike-chain-heel-bootie-women/5315584) that V wears, the [fucking horrible Yeezys](https://www.farfetch.com/uk/shopping/men/adidas-yeezy-yeezy-500-blushdesert-rat-sneakers-item-13157585.aspx), Moschino's[ print dresses V suggests](https://fashionmagazine.com/style/would-you-actually-wear-jeremy-scotts-first-collection-for-moschino/) which to me look like a living nightmare, [3.1 Phillip Lim](https://www.31philliplim.com/ca/sets/woman/new-arrivals), YSL [menswear that skewers genderqueer](https://www.ysl.com/es/saint-laurent/shop-product/men/new-arrivals), the [Cushine et Ochs dress Eve's wearing](https://assets.vogue.com/photos/589e254c817efe186928903e/master/w_900,c_limit/_CUS0163.jpg) when she's getting lovingly freaked, [Fleur du Mal lounge wear](https://www.fleurdumal.com/collections/loungewear) (which V has worn on the show before), [La Perla's to die for pieces](https://us.laperla.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwgo_5BRDuARIsADDEntQep8Re2R1oou2-5iHp3mqqY-gWFIqh_xMMR_rbiAHIzfMF000Fa24aApxrEALw_wcB) and the drool worthy[ Bordelle collection](https://www.coco-de-mer.com/?s=bordelle). I can not tell you how much fun it is to shop like Villanelle. 


	9. Take Control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh they fuckin'

_I like it when you take control_  
_Even if you know that you don't_  
_Own me, I'll let you play the role_  
_I'll be your animal_

Eve gets to experience the convenience of shopping in the giant fancy store in the same giant fancy hotel you’re staying in when everything is put onto three trolleys, taken up to their suite and then put away in the large closets there.

She stands at the door, just looking at all of these things, all of her beautiful new clothes that Villanelle had picked out for her, and god, she did it so perfectly again. Everything made Eve feel confident and powerful, something her old clothes never did for her.

In the huge set of drawers to the left of the closet all of the lingerie that Villanelle had purchased has been lovingly folded and arranged perfectly. She runs her fingers over the intricate lace, soft silks, the little bits of friffery that she’s going to need to see on Villanelle as much as she might want to see them on Eve.

In the next room Villanelle is talking to their valet, asking for two Kobe steak dinners to be delivered in two hours.

Eve wants her. She has to have her. Right now.

She closes the bedroom door and quickly takes off her dress, strips off the bra and panties she’s wearing and then goes through the drawers to find the naughtiest things she can find. It becomes immediately apparent that it’s this bra made out of satin ribbons that leave her nipples exposed and a matching set of panties that perfectly frames her exposed pussy, with garter straps hanging from it. After she has them on she pulls out a pair of light as air nude silk stockings with a seam and sits on the bed to pull them up her legs and just that act, the sensuality in pulling these sheer whisps up and over her skin, is sending shivers of want through her.

In all honesty, Eve’s never worn anything like this before so it’s a shock when she goes over to the mirror and takes it in. She looks obscene, her nipples and her pussy wrapped and framed making her body look unabashedly sexual, ready to be fucked. There’s something missing though, something not right with the way her legs look, and she knows exactly what that is.

Villanelle bought her these ridiculous heels, with a stiletto heel, the thinnest little ankle strap and a peep toe in black patent leather. Once she has them on she stands up, wobbling like a newborn calf.

“OH MY GOD!!! VILLANELLE!!” She shouts out, putting just the right amount of frantic and panic into her words to make Villanelle fling the door open and rush in there.

“What!? What’s going--” Villanelle loses the sentence half way through and her eyes go big, and she’s practically licking her chops at the sight of Eve. “Oh, look at you.”

“Yeah, you like?” Eve smirks back.

“Oh yes, baby, I like very much.”

“Good. Now take your clothes off.” Eve says in this firm, commanding tone she’s never heard coming out her own mouth before.

“Really?” Villanelle smirks at Eve’s tone.

With her hands in her pockets and her signature swagger, Villanelle saunters towards her, looking her up and down in a way that makes goosebumps ripple over Eve’s skin. She can feel her whole body starting to ripen, to anticipate Villanelle’s touch, and already she’s like a dog begging for it, wanting it so badly.

Villanelle stops a foot away from her, and they both get to experience the novel sensation of Eve being the taller one, so she guesses that these heels aren’t so bad after all. Villanelle pauses there, not saying anything, just looking at Eve wrapped in all this naughtiness with a mix of things across her face, want, and delight and yes, even somewhat incredulous. Then she locks eyes with Eve, and it’s a straight up old West showdown here, each waiting for the other one to crack, to back down. But Eve can feel this resolute need in her, to show Villanelle that despite her lack of experience in having sex with another woman, she definitely knows how to take over in the bedroom.

“I hope you’re okay with me not giving you the full walk and twirl because I don’t think it’s safe in terms of my ankles not snapping to step away from the side of the bed here.” Eve says and Villanelle’s shoulders shake with her laughter, and Eve’s won this round.

“See, this is why I love you. Always unexpected. Never boring.”

Villanelle steps back and starts to pull off her shirt, taking off the bra that was making her tits all plump and high, peeling off her jeans, shimming out of her panties and then she’s there, in front of Eve, grabbing her by the biceps and pulling her into a kiss, a devouring kiss, licking into Eve’s mouth, and already her own breath is rapid, and she can feel herself already wet, and that’s it, Villanelle has snatched back control.

So it’s going to be like this, huh? Eve realizes that she’s going to have to be sneaky this time.

Pulling back, Villanelle sits on the edge of the bed and helps guide Eve until she’s standing between her legs, facing her.

She moves her body closer and wraps an arm firmly around Eve’s hips, then lifts Eve's leg up over her shoulder while helping her balance, opening her up to her, then pushes her full breast, her nipple, as hard as a stone, against Eve's exposed, already slick labia. She starts to use her arm around Eve's hips to press her rhythmically against her, and goddamn it, Eve is literally fucking her tit and god fucking dammit she’s going to fucking explode.

She starts to undulate her hips, pressing her aching clit to Villanelle’s breast and she can feel the softness and the mass of it, this full breast she’s bucking against. Looking down makes this even more obscene, seeing Villanelle’s cheek pressed to Eve’s stomach, head back, eyes closed, cheeks flushed with arousal, taking in deep inhalations through her nose and she realizes suddenly that Villanelle is getting high on the smell of Eve’s arousal, and fuck she can’t take it anymore. Eve is pressing in hard against Villanelle’s body, fucking against her until everything peaks and the orgasm is fucking whipping through her, and she’s crying out, then whispering fuck over and over.

Before Eve can even recover, Villanelle is standing slowly, the tip of her tongue lightly tracing the inner curve of Eve's waist, causing another shudder to run through Eve's body. Stepping around Eve until she’s facing her from the opposite side, then turning Eve to face her. She smirks, and, without warning, pushes Eve down to sit on the bed, and stepping between her legs, so she’s reversed their positions completely.

When she looks back down at Eve, there is pure fire in her eyes. Quick, so quick, she reaches out to grab a handful of Eve’s hair, yanking her head back hard.

“Lick yourself off me, Eve. Lick my breast clean.”

The carnality in this, the violence, sears her. Villanelle moves so her glistening breast is there for Eve’s response. She’s obviously thinking she’s won, that she is the one in control again. Eve slowly and deliberately runs her tongue over Villanelle’s breast, long laps, all around her nipple, over and over, but never on it. She feels Villanelle’s breath hitch up, and her hand clenches in her hair, pulling it until it stings and Eve feels that pain send a spark of pleasure through her. Villanelle holds her head so that Villanelle’s nipple is between her lips, but she leaves her mouth open, her tongue back so she’s still not touching her where Villanelle wants. She waits, seeing the frustration build, and then hears it, a soft breathy whisper.

“Please.”

Eve pulls her nipple into her mouth swiftly, with just a gaze of her teeth over it and Villanelle keens, her body bucking against Eve’s, a reaction completely beyond her control. Without realizing it, she starts grinding her hips against Eve's body, and Eve can see she’s getting drawn into these sensations, her reactions being pulled out of her beyond her volition. Eve sneaks out a hand so she can give the lightest brush of fingers over Villanelle’s wetness, unintentionally brushing her hypersensitive clit and Villanelle’s whole body tenses, on the edge of the blade of orgasm.

Eve can see the exact moment that she realizes how she’d been manipulated into giving up control, how Eve had so subtly switched their power positions that she didn’t notice it. Villanelle pulls back sharply, holding Eve's head away from her body.

She looks down at Eve, and sees a competitive glance, a challenge, and they’re right back in their game. But Eve can see it in her girl’s face, she can see that Villanelle wants to relinquish, but it’s so foreign and still too frightening, that her instinctive reaction is to take back control.

She pushes Eve back roughly so she’s flat on her back on the voluminous white duvet and then straddles her. She bends forward very slowly until her full breast hangs just above Eve’s mouth. Slowly, so very slowly, she moves until her nipple just grazes over Eve's lips.

“Suck me off, Eve. Don’t make me tell you twice.”

Their eyes still locked, Eve's tongue darts out and flicks at the nipple, making Villanelle’s whole body shiver. Eve moves her chin up and pulls the nipple gently, softly between her lips and Villanelle gasps, then she’s pulling more of it in her mouth, flicking her tongue over her nipple and sucking, sucking, and she’s giving Villanelle’s tit the best blowjob ever.

Villanelle’s hands are holding her up on the bed on either side of Eve’s head and she’s arching her back into the pull on her breast. Eve is able to work her so effortlessly that she knows Villanelle doesn't notice her eyes drifting shut, her breathy moans, the bowing of her body.

Eve wraps an arm around Villanelle’s waist and pulls her body close, putting her thigh between Villanelle’s legs, so she has something to press against. Villanelle tosses her head back, and for the first time, it’s her babygirl who is making these deep moans, who’s calling out for it. Eve reaches out to run her hands through that long blonde hair laying over Villanelle’s back, and gathering the ends in her fist to yank Villanelle’s head back, and god, the reaction, Villanelle, in a rough voice, calling out her name. She’s rutting against Eve's thigh with complete abandon now, and Eve can feel a pressure deep in her, an ache that’s growing with how feral Villanelle is becoming.

Suddenly Villanelle’s whole body is moving, grinding, seeking, pressing, trembling, her cries becoming completely unchecked, and Eve realizes that my god, she’s also there again, so she moves slips her hand between their bodies to her framed pussy, dripping with her own wetness, and she frantically rubbing her clit and fuck she’s coming and then there is nothing but stars, shattering over her whole mindscape, and she presses against the white heat of that pleasure, beyond any she has felt before, and she’s crying out with her, both of them gasping for each other, drawing out their mutual orgasms.

Villanelle collapses next to her and starts to unconsciously curl up around Eve’s body, nuzzling into her, and it’s all so soft that it goes against anything she’s ever known from this woman. When Eve pulls back, she sees Villanelle looking at her through eyes intoxicated by all this sensory information, but there is more than that. Eve can see past everything until she’s looking at who this woman really is.

“So beautiful when you come for me, kitten. My sweetest, most wonderful girl so good for me.” She coos at her as she smooths Villanelle’s hair back from her sweaty forehead.

Eve gets a positively dopey smile in response, and Villanelle looks so happy, so loved, so vulnerable. Rapacious Villanelle has revealed this sweet girl, eager, shining under Eve’s attention and praise and Eve knows that she’s somewhere no one has been before. Behind Villanelle’s walls, past all the traps, she’s quietly snuck in and found this Villanelle, but no, not Villanelle. This is who Villanelle was, and hasn’t been allowed to be a very long time.

“My sweet, beautiful Oksana.”

______

Okay we got the [Bordelle shelf bra](https://www.coco-de-mer.com/product/bordelle-gia-shelf-bra/) with the matching [harness style undies and garter straps](https://www.coco-de-mer.com/product/bordelle-harness-brief-black/) with the [What Katie Did seamed stockings](https://www.whatkatiedid.com/collections/natural-seamed-stockings/products/glamour-cuban-heel-stockings-black-h2083) and the [YSL tribute lips heels](https://www.ysl.com/lu/shop-product/women/shoes-tribute-ii-shoes-tribute-lips-sandals-in-patent-leather_cod45393367ol.html). 


	10. Eve An and Oksana Astankova

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We now return you to your regular scheduled plot :)

_Take me to the river, drop me in the water_   
_Push me in the river, dip me in the water_   
_Washing me down, washing me_

It’s hours later and they’re sitting in that amazing, massive tub together, the golden light of the sunset lighting up the marble bathroom so it looks like it’s inside of a massive shining cloud, and they’re just floating inside it like a couple of angels and okay, Eve’s definitely still feeling fuck drunk.

She’s stretched back, totally supine, floating in mind and body, while Oksana, for this vulnerable girl is truly Oksana, lays the other way, massaging Eve’s foot.

“Dear god, you’re good at this.” Eve says through a moan when she hits that spot in her heel that always hurts. When she doesn’t get the usual ‘duh of course I am’ response, she opens her eyes just a bit to see Oksana looking distracted, puzzled even. She puts her hand in the water to squeeze where Okansa’s leg is next to her, getting her attention.

“What’s up?”

“Um, I was just…” Her brow furrowed, she’s looking lost for words.

“What?”

“Um… how are, you know, how are you? Doing?” She says it uncertainly, like the words are foreign in her mouth, and Eve realizes that showing concern for another person is foreign to Villanelle, but Oksana is here, trying.

“I think…” She pauses for a minute, looking out at the sun far out there, about to touch the horizon. “I used to think about it, you know. What it would be like to live your life, to go where I wanted, buy what I wanted, do what I wanted, and honestly, it’s pretty fucking awesome. And doing it with you, well, it’s just… This is all very dreamlike still. These places we’ve been going, they’re so… beautiful and opulent, and it’s like everywhere you go, people are in your sway. It’s not because of the fact that you obviously have money and some noticeably expensive taste. It’s you, you have this power. It’s kind of amazing to watch.”

“But Eve, what I am asking is how are you? Not how are you with me.” And this little bit of selfless observation from her girl just blindsides her.

“I… I don’t know if…” Eve searches for a moment inside of herself, inside of her brain, really looking at what’s been growing there. “I keep thinking I’m going to feel guilty for doing what I want, for giving in to these feelings that I fought for so long, but it’s just… not there. I feel… at peace now. It’s like I was carrying around something, something that didn’t belong to me, that I didn’t even really want. It was this idea that what I was doing before, the husband, house, nine-to-five job, bridge club, monthly dinner with friends, sensible clothes, I used to think that because I had that, I was succeeding, I was doing the right thing, I was a good person. When I met you, when I saw how you lived your life, how you did what you wanted, the idea was so… I was so jealous. I can see that now. I was jealous that you were living so unashamed, when I was doing what the world had told me a woman in her 40’s was supposed to and just… just sleepwalking through it.”

She reaches out, taking Oksana’s hand in hers, looking at her beautiful face, those hazel eyes so clear, skin glowing, and she’s scrubbed clean now, her sweet girl, no edifice, no masks, it’s just her, looking open and curious, and just so young.

“You gave me the permission to do this, to refuse what the world tells me I need to do to be a proper woman, and I don’t know if I can ever properly express to you how grateful I am for that.”

Then it’s that plump cheeked little girl smile, dimples and pure shining joy in her eyes, and Eve has to kiss, she can’t not.

“Look at how lovely you are, Oksana Astankova.”

She bites her lip, wide eyed and Eve will never get tired of seeing her like this. She’s thinking about where she is, how far she’s come, how inevitable their future together really was.

“And look at how lovely you are… ” She pauses. “Eve Polastri?”

“Hmm, I guess that’s not my name now.”

“What was your last name before you got married?”

“You don’t know?”

Oksana shakes her head.

“It’s An.”

She nods thoughtfully at this, then leans back to start rubbing Eve’s other foot.

“What’s your dad like?” Oksana asks.

“Oh, honey, my dad died when I was 16.” Oksana goes quiet at this.

“My dad died when I was young too.” They look at each other for a moment, both absorbing this new piece of the other’s history, seeing again where they are the same. “What was your dad like?”

“Funny, really funny. Also a total weirdo and a terrible cook. Was a champion volleyball player up until I was born. The international championship that he won was where he met my mom.”

“Do you miss him?”

“I do, but at the same time It’s been so long now though, and my life has changed so much in all these years since he died. It’s like I miss that time, being a teenager, and having him there to make me laugh or roll my eyes at him for being weird.”

“Hmm, yeah that makes sense.”

“How about you? What was your dad like?”

This stops Oksana cold, and Eve can see the tension instantly going through her.

“Also funny.” She says, and Eve knows she needs to get them away from this fast.

“What were you going to the jeweler for? Did you buy me something?”

She sees Oksana taking in a deep breath, coming back to the present. She meets Eve’s eyes again, and then she’s shaking her head in exasperation.

“So much for surprising you with it. Goddamn investigative mind.” She is heaving out, eyes rolling.

“Sorry! I just want to make sure you didn’t go too crazy.”

“You let me worry about that.” And then holy shit, she’s standing up and the water is running off her body, and Eve’s looking up at all that sluiced naked skin, and she’s everything, she’s Eve’s world in that moment, and fuck, she could just lean forward and press her mouth right to…

“Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Close your eyes, Eve An.”

She does, a little apprehensive, and hears Oksana’s wet feet on the marble, then she’s gone. Eve sits there, eyes shut, and she realizes that she’s actually buzzing now with anticipation. She knows how good she is at buying her gifts so this is going to be something amazing.

She hears her come back in the room, and feels her left hand being raised, and something is clamped onto her wrist, and then, judging by the splash, Oksana jumping back into the tub.

“Okay, open.”

“I really hope you didn’t just put me in handcuffs,” But what she sees is a gold bracelet with what look almost like rivets set with what she’s guessing are the white sapphires she was talking about earlier through the whole thing.

“Oh- oh my god.” She stumbles out as she studies it, and completely misses the amused look this brings to Oksana’s face.

“Cartier love bracelet. Eighteen carat yellow gold with a set of ten stones.”

“Stones?”

“Diamonds, baby.” And Eve is looking at her, and then at all the diamonds and then back up at her and she’s trying to stammer out something until Oksana takes pity on her, pulling her in to kiss her. “And they are kind of handcuffs because that little gold screwdriver on the counter there that I used to lock it is the only way you’re taking it off.”

“Fuck, that’s hot.” Eve says instantly because goddamn if being locked in by her isn’t making her thrumming pussy pulse again. “But I need one for you.”

“Well, I put mine back so I could pay for your new friend’s loans.”

And now Eve knows exactly how expensive this bracelet is, but it’s so beautiful, so perfect, that she can’t find it in her to be ashamed.

“You’re so good at this.” Eve says, eyes still on her wrist.

“Good at what? Shopping?”

“Making things beautiful.” Eve looks at her now and sees that she’s managed to genuinely surprise her. “You have an eye for it, seeing how things go together effortlessly yet so perfectly. And because you’ve played so many different kinds of people, you know what someone will like, what they’re drawn to, but you take it a step further and make it better, make it beautiful.” She stops, remembering something. “What made you say you’d have been an interior designer?”

“I really like tassels.”

“Be serious.”

“I am being serious! I have an addiction to vintage tassels! They can be huge! Like GMO apples hanging from a door knob or a canopy and it’s like an orchard all the sudden.”

“What else besides tassels?”

“Vintage wallpaper. Did you know that there are companies out there that reproduce old patterns from wallpaper they find in old buildings? People are too chicken shit to use patterns on their walls, it’s pathetic. It can look so amazing!”

“How would you use it for yourself?”

“Oh, I have evolved beyond it personally now, I think. Now I want one of those mural paintings, the ones that you see in the dining room of a French general during the reign of Napoleon. All green leaves and Greek vases and birds, in a dining room with one of those reclaimed wood tables, not the hipster kind either, there’s this company in Greece that makes them out of the wind and sun bleached wood from old coastal houses.”

“What about our front room?”

“Big giant couches, all thick white burlap, or white denim even, totally overstuffed and like clouds that you sink into. Lots of bright turquoise on the walls, and lots of super lesbo art by like that artist who painted vaginas and said they were flowers. But also I’d want some erotic Mapplethrope to confuse people.”

“And what about our bedroom?”

“Oh, the most massive California King bed we can find, so we could spend all day in it, rolling around and fucking and eating and sleeping and then fucking again. I’d want silk sheets, high end silks, so you could see what it feels like, everything is so smooth and soft and slippery, it’s like being inside a woman, like being inside your tight, slick pussy.” Villanelle crooks a brow at her at this. “And a dark orange, a burnt umber on the walls, so it feels safe, close, like a den.”

“What about the bathroom?”

“Definitely a big tub like this, because we would take baths together all of the time. We could lay in it like this, but it would be a private space, lots of gauzy curtains on the windows so it’s all diffused twilight in it. It would look so beautiful in the evenings, and I can see you in it, you would look so perfect in it.” Suddenly it’s like a light going on behind Oksana’s face. “Eve, I want to find us the perfect house, and I want to design the inside, and I want to…. I want to make us a home, Eve.”

“Yes, babygirl, yes. Absolutely.”

Eve sees a moment of waffling in her expression.

“I’ve never had that before.” Oksana says quietly, looking away.

“Had what?”

“A home.” How many times is this girl, this tender, vulnerable girl, going to break Eve’s heart.

“You deserve it, you deserve a beautiful home where you are safe and loved.”

“But we can’t, Eve.” She says, her voice strained.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not normal. I’m not allowed to have normal things.”

“Who told you that?” Silence is her answer, but there’s no need, because Eve knows. “Fuck what Dasha told you, fuck what all of them told you. Define normal for me.”

“Just, you know, grilling steaks on barbeques and watching G rated movies. Going to the grocery store because you forgot to get milk. Date night at the local.”

“You want that?”

“No. Milk is disgusting.”

“Well, what if we decided what our normal was? What if…” And something is starting to occur to Eve now. “What if you and I were able to live a life, a sustainable life, together?”

“How, Eve? You know that we both have these… these monsters in us. Monsters who become uncontrollable wherever either of us approach anything close to boredom.”

She was right, of course, and Eve knew it. Both of them had this darkness in them that would never be satisfied in any kind of settling down. But she’s determined now.

“Well maybe if the monsters get to play sometimes, they won’t feel bored. And then me and Oksana here can spend time on that couch watching some decidedly not G rated movies together.”

“Maybe videos of our monsters fucking?”

“My god, woman, you are going to be the death of me.”

The accuracy of this statement hits them both at the same time, and they’re both cackling like witches.

There’s a knock on the door; room service with their dinner.

“I’ll go answer the door.” Oksana says, kissing Eve quick and then standing up and stepping out of the tub. She watches her walk out of the room and goddamn she’s got the most luscious ass. Suddenly the idea of a spanking sounds like a great idea.

Something sparkles then, just in the corner of her eye, and she looks down at her wrist, the way the diamonds are catching the perfect amber coloured golden hour light flooding the room. It’s otherworldly now in the bathroom, everything is glowing as if from within, and how can this place even be real?

Hearing the front door close, she gets out of the tub herself, walking naked and wet into the front room to find Villanelle in a long white silk robe that’s clinging to her body where it’s stuck to her wet skin and she looks like a statue the Ancient Greeks would have put on a pedestal in a temple and worshipped. Eve gets caught up in this visual, because my god, she’s hers, Eve’s to touch and kiss and fuck, this stunningly beautiful woman.

“What?” Oksana says when she catches her staring.

“You’re a fucking babe.” Eve says and Oksana laughs.

“I know, right?” She says, lifting her shoulder up under her chin, pursing her lips and looking up and it’s so purely her, so completely brazen and egotistical and fuck if that doesn’t do it for Eve.

Oksana reaches out to pull the steam hoods off of two minuscule steaks, each the size of an orange slice, with a swirl of something red painted around it on the plate and three solitary wedges of potato stacked on the side, and that’s it, Eve’s had it.

“We need to go somewhere real.”

“What do you mean, real?”

“I know you love these fancy places, but I need to be somewhere that you get decent portions of actual food and have to open your own doors and clean your own plate and listen to someone talk about their little brother.”

Villanelle looks down at the measly portions, then up at Eve and nods, accepting this idea so quickly and seamlessly that any nerves Eve might have had asserting herself like this, in opposition to what Villanelle always seems to want, completely leave her.

“Let’s do it.”

____

[Cartier Love Bracelet with 10 diamonds in 18k yellow gold with gold screwdriver included.](https://ca.cartier.com/en-ca/collections/jewelry/categories/bracelets/love-bracelets/b6040517-love-bracelet-10-diamonds.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwrvv3BRAJEiwAhwOdM1TshWohS6df_Y5ashKlywkVTP2IONnseK-XhCFioDHfqjSqZeSaVBoCeHgQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds) All decor is in my brain only and even though I'm sure some of this is out there, I don't have links for it, sadly. 

As of yesterday, besides some editing, I've finished writing these 14 chapters, and am now planning additional outside POV vignettes to continue on with this universe. 


	11. Matcha is very trendy right now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know very little about Korea culture, so most of this is from research I did, but I know as a white person, I have to be mindful when writing about a different culture I'm not familiar with. If I have any Korean readers out there, please let me know if I am misusing or misrepresenting something and I will amend it. 
> 
> I've made all the dialogue said in Korean italicised.

_Now I don't know where you came from_   
_'cause I don't know where you've been._   
_But it really doesn't matter_   
_grab a chair and fill your platter_   
_and dig dig dig right in!_

They take the train down south to the coast, and even though Eve’s never been here before, everything seems familiar. The closer she gets, she starts to realize it's familiar because she’d grown up listening to her father talk about it, the way the terraced tea fields create long curving lines, making the hills and valley look like a topographic map.

Once they get to Boseong-gun, Eve’s nerves start to act up. As they walk through one of the last train stations, Eve feels for the first time what it's like to be afraid of what other people’s reactions are going to be to you holding the person you love's hand. Then she looks over at Oksana, now taking in this decidedly rural area, as, without even a flicker of hesitation, reaches out and takes Eve’s hand. She isn’t ashamed because she feels no fear, Eve realizes. That’s her secret. She’s unafraid to be completely as she is, and has the skills and strength to back up that confidence.

She gives the cab driver an address that she got from her aunt’s friend who ran the restaurant she worked at (“Where are you, Eve? The new girl’s dumplings suck!”) and turns finally to Oksana who has been pestering her with questions about where they were going the whole time.

“Okay, babe, we’re going to my dad’s family’s house. My aunties and my dad’s Umma, they live there. They have all been tea pickers here for decades. The only time I’ve been in their actual presence was when I was like five and they all came over to visit us in Connecticut, but since then it’s mainly just religious Christmas cards.” Eve took in a deep breath. “I don’t know how they’re going to handle the whole, you know…”

Oksana watches her gesture between the two of them and laughs.

“You mean the whole thing where I fuck your pussy so good that you squirt in my mouth?” Oksana says, and Jesus Christ, she hopes the cab driver doesn’t speak English.

“Okay, this is exactly what I’m talking about. No shocking the old ladies, okay? I’m just here to say hello to them, and then we’re going to go on a tour of all the places my dad told me about around here.”

The cab, which had been rumbling down a dirt road, stops at a small house made of what looks like corrugated steel tied together with twine. Before he drives away, the cab driver tells them that he likes it when girls squirt too and Oksana has to literally hold Eve back from chasing down the cab to kick his ass.

 _“Hello there!”_ a voice behind them calls out, and turning around she sees an old woman barely over five feet tall with a homespun wrap around her head and shoulders, her feet bare.

_“Hello, auntie. It’s Eve.”_

Eve watches as 3, 2, 1 and then it hits her.

 _“Eve!!!”_ She screams and suddenly she’s being hugged tight to a set of big cushiony boobs. _“Kyung-ja! Young-sook! It’s Eve! Jae-ho’s daughter is home!”_

Suddenly there are two other equally little old ladies coming out of the tiny shack, wearing homespun clothes, and one, inexplicably, is wearing those ugly sneakers that girl had been wearing back at the store. She’s pulled into tight hugs by them as well, and they are all talking in Korean at once, about Eve, little Eve, and look she has Umma's hair and those are her father’s eyes, oh Soon-Hee, she’s got her father’s eyes, and then the three of them are getting weepy, and oh fuck she just made her aunties cry.

 _“Hey, hey it’s okay! I’m here to visit! Dad always told me about this place, about you all, and I wanted to come out and meet you!”_ She clears her throat then, nervous, and reaches out for Oksana, who’s standing at the side of all this, clearly fascinated even though she can’t understand what’s being said. Oksana takes her hand, and places herself just ahead of Eve, as if to protect her. “This is my girlfriend. Oksana.”

“Look at you! Got yourself a young hot babe!” Kyung-ja says in English, moving over to jab her elbow into her side. “Z’s going to be jealous.”

Young-sook, who’s been silently watching Oksana, slowly approaches her. Oksana steps back just a bit and looks slightly uncertain. She stops and her face, all her wrinkles, come together to show a well worn smile and asks in English, “Would it be okay if I hugged you?”

Oksana’s eyes cast about for just a second, then she’s nodding, then being pulled into a big, giant bear hug.

“Welcome to the family, Oksana.” Soon-hee says, then notices how clearly taken aback Eve is at this. “What? Were you expecting some kind of coming of age moment where your horrible aunties tell you you’re going to hell for being gay?”

“But my dad always told me that you were really conservative and that you guys do shit like baptisms and Easter breakfasts with the bishop and oh my god he did that all just for this moment, he was fucking punking me the whole time, and oh my god, Aunties I miss him too.” And then they’re all weepy and hugging, called back to sense by a voice calling out behind them.

_“Hey! What’s going on? Are these the guests that were supposed to be here tomorrow showing up early?”_

There’s a tiny, genderqueer person coming out of the shack now, wearing carpenter jeans and a t-shirt that has a unicorn taking a shit on it.

“It’s okay, Z! It’s your cousin! And her hot girlfriend!” Soon-hee says, shoving Eve towards her, then Oksana as well. “They’re gei! Like you! Or wait, do you two identify as gei? Or yangseongaeja, Eve?”

And now Eve knows the Korean words for gay and bisexual. She’s looking at this person, her cousin, but she isn’t sure if she remembers and then it dawns on her.

“Zoe?”

“Hmm, I go by Z now, but yup.”

“Oh my god how are you a grown up? You were like six the last time I saw you when your mom brought you to London to go see the Spice Girls and you were so excited.”

“Yeah, turns out that obsession with Mel C was kind of an indicator.”

“Z is smart, classy business person. They came up with this idea.” Kyung-ja says in English also, gesturing to the house behind them, their clothes. “All these rich white hipsters come out here now for the green tea festival.”

“Matcha is very trendy right now.” Young-sook adds.

“They all come out here wanting the” Soon-Hee puts up air quotes “‘real rural Asian village experience,’ so we bought this crappy piece of land from Phil who runs the capezio studio in town and built this piece of shit shack thing.”

Z reaches out and shakes it lightly, causing the whole thing to slant a noticeable amount.

“We charge them 350 dollars US a night to sleep on the floor under a mat and eat packaged udon noodles that they're too dumb to know are actually Japanese from a giant pot that the aunties circle all night, talking in Korean, and they think they’re spouting ancient wisdom, but really they’re complaining about who won on America’s Got Talent the night before.”

“It’s our favorite show!” Soon-hee says, nodding energetically.

“Come on joka, let’s go back to the house.”

The Aunties all troop in a line behind Z like little wrinkly ducklings. Eve reaches back her hand, and once Oksana has a hold of it, follows along behind them.

They walk for a couple minutes down a barely discernible foot path that eventually curves behind a copse of trees and well shit, there’s a shiny new Land Rover parked there.

“Okay, Eve, you're in the back with the aunties. Oksana you’re up front with me.”

“Wait, what’s going on?”

“Wait, did you not hear about what happened?” Kyung-ja asks. “Oh Eve… ”

“Umma now owns the tea plantation, the one we all worked on.” Kyung-ja finishes for her

“How… where did she get the money?”

“It’s the best story ever!” Kyung-ja adds excitedly. “She killed that old asshole who used to own it!”

They drive for about a half hour, through acres of rolling hills all terraced for the tea planting.

“It’s so beautiful,” Eve says.

“Not so much when you’re out there everyday in the heat harvesting it.” Soon-Hee grumps out.

“You haven’t been out there in years.” Z says rolling her eyes. “Besides, all the people who work here now are partners with us. They all get a direct share in the profits from our tea company, Umma Tea.”

“All POC female owned and operated! Top selling green tea latte mix at all Trader Joe’s locations in America!” Soon-hee tells them proudly. “We’re all feminists! And it’s making us a lot of money!”

“And now all the harvesters drive Lexuses to work!” Kyung-ja says, laughing, looking up from her iPhone for the first time the whole trip.

There, at the top of the highest hill, surrounded by lush, verdant lawns and beautifully cultivated gardens, is a one story manor home lined with giant windows and a huge wrap around veranda, sprawling out over the hilltop.

“Holy shit.” Oksana whispers, making Soon-hee grin at her.

“Wait until you see the inside. Umma got rid of all the tacky furniture that had been in there before we moved in and made it look amazing.” Soon-hee says.

“They filmed a movie about rich people who kill each other here two years ago!” Kyung-ja says.

“Not Parasite though.” Soon-hee says, sadly. “We keep trying to contact Bong Joon-ho inviting him to come but I think he’s too busy being better at filmmaking than Americans.”

They pull around to a multi car garage that contains a very shiny vintage car and a very dirty motorcycle.

“You have a Triumph TR6 Trophy?” Oksana asks, her eyes wide and yeah it's kinda hot that she instantly knows that.

“1968 model, all original parts.” Z says. “Umma got it for me as a graduation present.”

“The 1958 Corvette is Umma’s, but she’s not allowed to drive it since she hit that goat three years ago when she was out for one of her joy rides.” Soon-hee says. “She sure was mad about it, but come on, she’s 93 now! No more driving!”

As they’re walking to the house, a horn honks from the driveway. There’s two cars coming towards them, and Eve can see nothing but hands waving out the windows.

 _“Eve!! Eve!! You’re finally here!”_ Says the excited driver of the first car.

“Aunties, who are these people?” Eve asks.

“Your cousins Ji-Hoon, Do-yeon and Hyun-woo and their families! I texted everyone and told them that Jae-ho’s daughter was home!” Kyung-ja says, excitedly as she waves back at them.

“Oh god,” Eve mutters under her breath at all the social family energy about to bombard them. She reaches out for Oksana’s hand, tugging it to her. “You okay?”

She has time to nod back and then the doors are being open and there’s three men getting out of their cars who all look like her dad and fuck she’s starting to tear up already.

There is what only can be described as a swarm of Ans around them, and Eve’s being hugged by multiple people, and everyone is talking so fast in Korean that she’s struggling to keep up while she translates what they’re saying for Oksana. Her Uncle Ji-hoon is asking her what the guy said to the hooker dwarf ( _“Uncle, we’ve talked about the word hooker, it’s sex worker.”_ Z gently corrects him and he’s genuinely sorry, vowing to do better from now on.) Her cousin Brayden ( _“Such a stupid name your uncle Hyun-woo let his wife name him.”_ Soon-Hee whispers to her) is excitedly asking Oksana if, omg, is that an ACTUAL vintage Louis Vuitton overnight bag (“Of course it is, do I look like someone who would own a fake bag?”) and holy shit can he just like hold it real quick and maybe pet it a little? Her other uncle Do-yeon is telling her all about his latest kidney stones that he’s been trying to pass for a month now and really Eve do you know how hard it is to piss out kidney stones when you have a penis?

She almost crowd surf in all the arms still hugging her up into the house. Eve is eventually able to turn around and sees that Young-sook has her arm hooked with Oksana, and they are quietly talking to each other, and she recognizes that look on her face, the blossoming of acceptance and overwhelmed by a show of affection and Eve feels a pang of love and gratefulness in her chest for her family.

The Aunties disperse as soon as they get inside, hustling off to the kitchen to make dinner. The uncles and cousins all tumble into the massive front room, yelling at each other and laughing and teasing.

“Oh my god, this room. This room is…” Oksana says, slowly turning around to take it all in.

“Maeu hullyunghan,” Eve says. “Stunning.”

Everything is low, long sleek lines, light coloured wood vaulted ceilings with exposed rafters and huge fans, lazily turning, wood floors polished to a high shine, low lounging sofas, the exterior walls nothing but glass doors, open to the late afternoon breeze coming up the side of the hill. It’s traditional while still modern, clean lined but still comfortable and livable.

“Umma is like, full on Bobby Berk.” Brayden says as he pulls Oksana over to sit next to him. “Now tell me every single thing about you because, holy shit, you are fucking fierce.”

They get ordered into the dining room after 45 minutes of the uncles asking Eve everything about her life and then sharing their opinions on it.

 _“I’m glad you’re not part of MI6 anymore. The police state in the West is corrupt, and you shouldn’t be a part of it!”_ Ji-hoon says.

 _“That’s what you get for marrying some Eastern European, Eve. They all smell like cabbage!”_ Aylun-woo says and earns a smack upside the head from his kid, Z.

 _“Of course you ended up with a beautiful woman, Eve. All the Ans have an intense sexual magnetism that drives women crazy!”_ Do-Yeon says as he nods towards Oksana, who is currently explaining her skin care routine to Brayden.

The dining room has a massive wood table, and it has multiple electric grills on it, and there’s bowls of ssamjang for dipping the galbi and bulgogi in, with plates of perilla leaves, chilis, sliced garlic cloves, lots of banchan, bowls of steaming rice, and already Kyung-ja is filling up their glasses with soju and fuck yeah she’s going to eat some real food, good food, amazing food. Oksana’s eyes are as big as saucers looking at all of it, and Eve knows that she gets what she meant when she said they needed to eat real food.

They’re placed right in the middle of table, and everyone is talking over each other, and Soon-hee is sitting next to Oksana, talking so quietly to her that Eve can’t make out what they’re saying, but she sees Soon-hee pat Oksana’s cheek with her papery skinned hand, and she basically melts at the look of happiness on her girl’s face as she gets this kind familia attention.

 _“What’s this about my granddaughter being home?”_ A voice asks quietly, and instantly everyone in the room goes silent.

Eve hasn’t seen her gramma since her dad’s funeral, and definitely never calls her enough, especially now that she’s in an obsessive relationship with a somewhat reformed serial killer that had been mutually stalking her. The amount of time that has passed becomes apparent looking at the little old lady, stooped over, in a loose black cotton dress and a pair of sneakers that say Givenchy on them.

 _“Halmeoni,”_ Eve says, getting up and going over to her. _“I missed you.”_

 _“I missed you too.”_ She holds out her arms, and even though now Eve is taller and Umma is shorter, she stills smells like her, like perfume and her face powder and just something that is intrinsically her, and it’s like she’s a little girl all over again.

 _“This is all very touching, Umma, but I’m starving, so can you please sit down?”_ Soon-hee says, breaking the moment. Umma turns to her, narrowing her eyes.

 _“I’m going to let that one go, you brat, because I know how you get when you are hangry.”_ She says, and moves to sit at the head of the table. _“Okay, you ravenous dogs, unleash yourself on this dinner.”_

Then they’re eating and everyone’s asking Oksana what she thinks of the food, and she’s so busy cramming it in her mouth that she can only nod and groan occasionally, her eyes going skyward at how good everything is, how much of everything there is. Looking around at all these faces, so happy to see her, so loving and accepting of her partner, Eve feels a rush come over her, and it’s like her Dad is there, so close to her in a way she hadn’t felt in years.

___

[Umma's Givenchy sneakers,](24s.com/en-ca/givenchy-paris-low-trainers-givenchy_GIVYYY6A?defaultSku=GIVYYY6ABCKSI37000&color=black&lgw_code=5939-GIVYYY6ABCKSI37000&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsuP5BRCoARIsAPtX_wEyTZG5qfrKDeysCPDL9cDVLkv5MmjmOmu1kd9EpumFbKpRGhcb6EEaArtqEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds) and her [1958 Corvette](https://www.corvsport.com/1958-c1-corvette-image-gallery/), Z's [1968 Triumph TR6 Trophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_TR6_Trophy). 

joka - niece  
Halmeoni - granddaughter


	12. She's a lion, isn't she?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a bit of a mommy kink in the back half of this chapter, so if that squicks you out, you can go ahead and skip everything after the sentence “You did what you had to do. You freed your brothers from her. You saved them.” 
> 
> I will say that when Sandra Oh said Eve and Villanelle have a mother/daughter type relationship, I think this is what she meant. I've always found it interesting that the Daddy older man/younger man or woman thing is regarded as so hot and the Mommy kink is thought of as gross. It's smacks of the patriarchal bullshit that robs older women of the ability to be seen as sexually desirable so fuck that! Let's do this!

_Precious little angel_   
_Won’t you spread your light on me_   
_I was locked up in the darkness_   
_Now you’ve come to set me free_

After dinner, once Eve’s uncles are done cleaning the table and the kitchen (“We don’t believe in predetermined gender roles in this family” Soon-hee says to Oksana,) Z picks up on the fact that Eve and Oksana need a break. They mention that it’s almost 9 and isn't The Masked Singer on soon and the crowd almost instantly disperses, the uncles running back to their cars and the aunties are bustling down the hall, talking is curse laden English about who they think it is, no, not fucking Beyonce, Kyung-ja, she would never do that kind of chicken shit gig but maybe that one, the other one, the shitty replacement, you know the one with no ass. As soon as the door closes, Eve realizes it’s just her, Umma, Oksana and Z.

“Well, that got them all out of here damn quick.” Eve asked.

“Are you kidding me? They’re all obsessed with American competition shows. The Aunties won’t be leaving the TV room until after Untucked.” Z says, rolling their eyes.

“I have a question.” Oksana says, eyes squinting in thought. “Where are their husbands?”

“Oh they never got married, not any of them. Soon-hee was with her ex for about fifteen years but he died like twenty years ago.” Z tells them.

“Then who...?”

“Kyung-ja and Young-sook lived in San Francisco in their twenties during the 60s and went to a lot of key parties. Apparently contraceptives there were spotty at best.” Z laughs. “Now that the rabble is gone, let’s take Umma up to her room.”

 _“Is your girlfriend okay with us speaking Korean?”_ Umma asks Eve as she takes her arm. _“We can try English but Brayden told me I sound like a drag queen when I talk, but that’s only because I watch too much Drag Race. He’s just as bad with all that tongue-popping.”_

Eve snorts at this, because of course she’s sassy as shit.

 _“She’s okay, don’t worry. Probably understands more than she’s letting on because she’s a sneaky piece of shit like that.”_ Eve says, smiling sweetly as Oksana, looking for any kind of a ripple in her look of incomprehension but gets none, which means she actually doesn’t understand or she does and she’s doing a damn good job pretending. Knowing her, it could easily be either or.

 _“Oh I like sneaky pieces of shit.”_ Umma says, grinning.

They go to the back of the house, down a long hallway and into a large corner bedroom that has a huge, low bed with a canopy over it, and low comfy couches in front of open glass patio doors.

“Sit down, girls.” Umma says, as she sits in a huge, overstuffed armchair that almost swallows up her tiny form.

Eve has to take Oksana’s hand and pull her over to the couch because she’s so enraptured at how beautifully decorated the room is, pulling her down to sit next to her. She sees Umma smiling big at this.

_“Oh, you’re the boss here, huh?”_

_“Depends on the hour.”_

_“Ha! That’s the same with your grampa! Big dummy thought he could tell me what to do. Then that bastard would sneak in, suddenly he’s saying jump and damn if it’s not me jumping.”_ She sits up straight, juts her chin up proudly. _“Do you like my house?”_

 _“It’s, ah, it’s very big.”_ Eve gives her the eye. _“Heard there’s quite a story behind it.”_

 _“Hmm.”_ She looks at Eve, and then looks at Oksana. _“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”_

_“What makes you think…”_

_“You are here, in Korea, wearing a 10,000 dollar Cartier bracelet and a pair of five hundred dollar shoes, with a young, hot Russian girlfriend, having left your job and your husband and your home. You did something huge, Eve, to get to this and I can tell by looking at the two of you that you’ve done the thing all women want to do, but few women can. You’ve decided to not give a damn about the rules, to not let anyone hold you back. You’ve let your power win, Eve.”_

_“It was her, Umma.”_ She reaches out to hold Oksana’s hand. _“She broke me out of my prison, and showed me who I really am.”_

 _“This one, she’s a lion, isn’t she? And she taught you how to roar, how to hunt,”_ Umma leans towards Eve, whispering, _“And how it feels to have blood in your teeth from your kill.”_

 _“Yes.”_ Eve answers, transfixed by the look Umma is giving her, the look that says she knows too.

 _“Darkness can be so beautiful. I wish more women embraced it, and learned to fight back, and to take control of their fate.”_ Umma smiles. _“What did you do in return for her showing you your path to freedom?”_

 _“I killed those who were keeping her in a cage, who were telling her lies about who she really was, and what she was meant to be.”_ Eve says, her face determined. _“And I’ll keep doing it. I will always do it.”_

 _“Good.”_ Umma says, nodding sagely. “Good. I am glad you have each other. I’m glad you are both free. And I’m glad you found someone who can dress you in diamonds and beautiful clothes because you deserve all of that.”

 _“Now you tell me yours, Umma.”_ Eve says.

 _“Oh, you mean my dear Oscar falling down the stairs?”_ Umma looks just a little too bereaved for it to seem believable. _“I didn’t murder him, of course. He had an very_ unfortunate _accident where he fell off the edge of a cliff not far from here. Saw the whole thing too, but of course I was too far away to do anything to help.”_

 _“Of course,”_ Eve says, slyly.

_“It was about fifteen years ago. Came up here to be a maid after his wife died, waited for him one night naked in his bed, beguiled him, and we had a passionate affair for six months where I told him to prove to me that he would love me for forever and sign the deed of the plantation to me, and that dummy did, ha!”_

And now they’re both cackling, because fuck, this is a great story, and Oksana is looking at them with a huge grin.

“What are you grinning at?” Eve asks her.

“You know I have a thing for curly hair,” she smirks, jutting her chin out at Umma who’s pulling her hair down and yeah there’s Eve’s head of thick, full curls, all silver, and she sees Oksana’s face fill with delight. “That’s going to be you, Eve. I hope I get to see you like that.”

“You will, babygirl, you will.”

Umma insists that they stay over at the big house. (“Unless you want to stay at the Air BnB,” she cackles.) Z takes them to this large guest room, dimly lit with a huge canopy bed and low ceilings and lots of fans and billowing curtains. It’s also noticeably on the other side of the house from everyone else’s rooms which Eve realizes was a real solid Z was doing her.

“You have a girl this hot, you better be making her scream.” Z says as she turns to leave, and Eve thinks she sees Oksana’s eyebrow lift just a bit at this.

Then, for the first time in a very long day, they’re finally alone again. Eve runs for the bed and dives into it, and yup, just as cloud like as the bed in the fancy hotel. She feels Oksana crawl up on the bed next to her, laying on her back and watching the canopy swirling in the breeze.

“Eve, that was amazing.”

“What was?”

“Your family. That feeling. Everyone just loves each other and there’s no demands, there’s no cruelty, no manipulation, just, just delight at being together.” She can see a wetness gathering in Oksana’s eyes. “I’ve never felt that before. I felt so… a part of something, something good.”

“Oh, babygirl, come here.” Eve rolls to her side and lifts her arm, and Oksana immediately tucks herself up almost under Eve, arms curled up to her chest.

“I didn’t think that could even be real. Like on TV, a big family dinner, but it was real and it was so good, the food, oh my god Eve, it was so good.”

“That’s the best Korean barbeque you’ll ever have, bar none.”

“I don’t think it would be possible to ever beat that.”

“Make sure you tell the Aunties that.”

“It’s literally all I was saying all night. Every time I did they would pat my cheek and smile at me. It felt nice.” Oksana whispers that last bit for only Eve to hear, like the precious information it is.

“You’re welcome here. You’re a part of this family now too.”

This seemingly breaks something for Oksana because she’s pressing her wet cheek to Eve’s chest, and Eve gently strokes her back, shushing her, doing it over and over until she feels Oksana’s sleeping weight on her body, and she can’t bring herself to complain about her nodding off on her.

She pulls herself out gently from under Oksana’s sleeping form, and sits up to pull off her dress and her bra, then very tenderly takes Oksana’s pants and top off, being so careful not to rouse her. Then she’s pulling a blanket over both of them and spooning up behind her girl, pressing their bare skin together, and kissing the back of her neck.

She’s pulled from sleep hours later by the feeling of the body she’s holding onto starting to twitch, and then flail. Dazed, she shakes herself to wakefulness.

“Babygirl, hey, babygirl, wake up.” She says, gently stroking Oksana’s troubled face, but she’s still locked into her nightmare. She starts whimpering, and then mouthing out something, a word…. mama, she’s saying, mama, mama, mama and then suddenly her eyes are open with a shout.

“Shhh, babygirl, it’s okay,” She says, trying to pull Oksana close, but she’s still rigid with her upset. “It was just a dream, it wasn’t real.”

“It was real, Eve.” Oksana finally answers. “It was real, and I did it, Eve, I did it.”

Eve strokes Oksana’s frazzled hair back from her wet cheeks, pressing kisses to her forehead, shushing her, and eventually she feels the tension drain out of her, her body finally going lax in her arms. Oksana turns on to her side and tucks her body up against Eve’s and they’re close, so close, facing each other, pressed together, and Oksana’s head is bowed, tucked under Eve’s chin.

“You can tell me what happened, if you’re ready.” Eve murmurs to her.

“It’s not a happy story.”

“When it’s family, a lot of times it’s not.”

“You remember, you remember when you asked me at the dance hall about what happened? Why everything changed?”

“Yes.”

“I went back home, to Russia. I found out my family wasn’t dead, and where they lived. I went to see them.”

Oksana lays it all out then, tells her about her brothers and what it felt like to have someone care about her so purely, and accept her, and then about her mother, about the things she would say to Oksana when she was younger, how she told her she was evil, had a blackness inside of her, that she knew she was bad from the very start when she wouldn’t stop biting her when she was breastfeeding, about her cheating on Oksana’s father even though he was good and kind, and he loved Oksana so much, and she knew now that her mother was jealous of the attention he paid his daughter instead of his wife, and then he’d been killed in an accident, and it was just her mother, her and her brother, who was only a baby then, and Oksana had no one, then, truly no one to protect her from her mother, from all her grief and guilt coming out as verbal and physical abuse that she inflicted on Oksana every day, until one day, she got her up early in the morning, made her her favorite breakfast, put her in her favorite pink dress, and drove her out to the orphanage, and left without ever looking back, ignoring Oksana screaming, crying, begging her not to go.

When she admits that she killed her, that she blew up that cursed house, Eve isn’t surprised. She knows what Oksana is like when cornered, that Villanelle will always rise up, Oksana’s eternal rescuer, and honestly if she hadn’t, Eve would be getting on a plane to do it herself. But still, Oksana’s weeping, saying that after that she knew that it was over, that she’d finally seen the life drain out of eyes that were familiar, so familiar, and realized that she would never be able to watch another person die at her hands.

Eve rolls her to lay Oksana on her back, and curls herself around her, to protect her, cover her with herself.

“Sweet babygirl.” She says, stroking her face. “You did what you had to do. You freed your brothers from her. You saved them.”

“But I…” her voice is strangled with her tears, “I still miss my mama, Eve.”

And god, what a complicated thing our relationships with our mothers are, Eve thinks. This information makes so much sense, when you look at Oksana, about where she was already at before the Twelve even had her, that she’s been gaslit since birth to believe that she was bad, evil, and then forced out into the world unprotected, her mother abandoning her and making her think it was her own fault. There was Oksana, a little girl, alone and scared and crying for her mama, and here she is again, crying and in need of a mother figure who truly accepts her, who loves her as she truly is, and won’t ever abandon her.

“It’s okay, sweet girl, it’s okay. You have me now, I will take care of you, I will keep you safe. I will always be with you, and always love you.”

Oksana reaches out to wrap her arm tight around Eve’s waist, clinging to her, turning her face into Eve’s body, into her chest, her eyes closed tight, the tears drying on her cheeks.

“Am I, am I good?” She whispers into Eve’s skin.

“You are such a good girl. So sweet for me, Oksana, my most precious girl.”

Oksana keens at this, and she’s nuzzling into Eve, and suddenly, an impulse from some unchecked part of Eve’s brain makes her shift just a little, until her breast is there, and Oksana, just as instinctively, moves to pull the nipple into her mouth, and it’s play acting that’s more than just for play Eve thinks as she watches her nurse.

Something races through Eve at this, some combination of desire, purpose, the need to provide almost maternal inside her, and she feeds her babygirl, she gives her all that she has lacked, the unconditional love, the deep connection, the presence of a protector.

Oksana makes a low whimper, and she’s arching her body up into Eve’s, and she knows what her sweet girl needs, knows she needs to feel something true, something so pure and good, to feel overwhelmed with it. She coasts her fingers down Oksana’s side and along the press of their bodies, until she finds her, and she’s so wet, so ready for her, that all Eve has to do is tickle her fingers into her slit, push them in as easily as her knife had slipped into Oksana’s body, and slowly rubs the palm of her hand against Oksana’s wet center, and she’s sucking on Eve’s breast while she undulates up against her hand, and Eve tells her what a good, sweet girl she is, her beautiful girl, so sweet, kitten, so very sweet, and she loves her so much, she loves her good girl, mama loves her good girl, and then Oksana lets out a throaty sob, and is coming, gasping around her breast, smearing her wetness all over Eve’s hand and Eve can feel it, feel her pulsing with it. Eve is leaning over her, so that they both see nothing but each other, locked in each other’s gaze and Oksana has this look, full of awe and gratefulness and it’s the tenderest part of her, something so hidden and so precious, her eyes now a crystalline green with her tears, and this is the most intimate Eve’s ever been with another person, beyond what she ever thought would be possible.

Eve’s own tears are dripping onto Oksana’s face, washing away all that doubt, and then they’re both gasping, and arching into each other, and her sweet kitten is making these beautiful little mews, and Eve is cooing come here, come here as she gathers Oksana to her, wraps her up tight, and she can feel Oksana’s body trembling, her breathing hitched and hears it, hears the whisper, Eve, Eve, Eve, Eve and answers yes, yes, I’m here, I’m here.


	13. A call to purpose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've increased the chapter amount because the full story is going to be 14 chapters and then 4 outsider POV vignettes. 
> 
> I did a rough outline for an ABO story, would you all be interested in that? Lemme know :)

_When I get mad and I get pissed_   
_I grab my pen and I write a list_   
_Of all the people that won't be missed_   
_You've made my shitlist_

Eve wakes up the next morning to an empty bed. She casts about, lost for a moment, and then feels something next to her. It’s a box, a velvet jewelry box. Sitting up, she pulls it to her and opens the lid to find a silver necklace, no this is a collar, a perfect circle, with a small ring suspended at the center. Eve realizes what it is that Oksana has left her, a beautiful collar for her kitten and now she has to see her babygirl as soon as possible.

She gets out of bed, goes to the huge bathroom, and takes an amazing shower in the gigantic waterfall shower that takes up half the room. Once she’s dried and dressed, she wanders down through the house, towards the distant voices, until she’s walking out onto the porch. Oksana is out there, sitting on the porch swing and there’s the Aunties, all dressed in their church clothes, Z sitting up on the railing, and another woman, a little younger than her.

 _“Sylvia! Is that you?”_ Eve says, going over to embrace her tightly. _“What are you doing here?”_

 _“I came from the city to see you, of course. I got the message that you were here on the family Facebook page.”_ She says, grabbing onto Eve’s hands. _“You look great, there, cousin.”_

 _“You look good yourself,”_ Eve says, but this close she can see dark circles under her eyes, eyes full of a kind of resignation.

 _“I don’t know about that,”_ Sylvia says, and she smiles a tight lipped smile. _“Just met your significant other here.”_

 _“The Aunties introduced me as your wife, so I think they may be on to us.”_ Oksana says, grinning cheekily at her.

“You little brat! Did you know Korean this whole time?”

“No! Not the whole time! Just a little! Okay, a lot now, but only because I heard you all talking in it last night. Plus the Aunties are helping me.”

“Her pronunciation is horrible.” Soon-hee says, smiling at Oksana.

“You should hear my Mandarin. It’s even worse.”

“I don’t think you have an ear for Asian languages, my darling.” Eve says as she goes to sit on the swing next to Oksana, leaning forward to kiss her. “It’s okay, I love you anyways.”

Then the Aunties are all aww’ing at them, and Eve takes the opportunity to whisper into Oksana’s ear for only her to hear.

“Were you carrying that collar around with the intention of me wearing it or you?”

“My intent may have changed last night.” And she has the good grace to look sheepish. “But, don’t worry, I will buy you your own.”

“Aunties, you better get going if you’re going to make it to the service in time.” Z says and the three ladies are instantly in a tizzy, all talking over each other, and are you sure you don’t want to come, Oksana and Eve buries her face into Oksana’s shoulder to keep from laughing at the idea of her in church. The Aunties bid them goodbye, and then proceed to argue about last night’s episode of America’s Got Talent, until they get into the sedan, Young-sook behind the wheel.

“She’s the only one left with a driver’s license now what they’re all in the back end of their seventies, but they were all better drivers than Umma, thank god.” Z tells them. “So you both look like you slept well. Eventually.”

Oksana snorts at this, leaning back and putting her arm around the back of the swing behind Eve, full on manspreading in her tailored Bermuda linen shorts and menswear style floral print button up. She starts to delicately curl Eve’s still damp hair around her fingers with a touch that could only be described as proprietorial, setting each curl perfectly and meticulously and look who’s the butchy top this morning.

“We did, yes, eventually.” Eve says, giving Oksana a very suggestive look. “They still go to church?”

“Yeah, but only for all the gossip. Today it’ll probably be about their new gay family member, so congrats on that.” Z smirks.

“What I don’t understand is why they do this Air BnB scam for tourists when they’re this rich.” Eve asks.

“Well when I asked Soon-hee last night she said, ‘oh, we do it for shits.’ and then laughed like an evil troll.” Oksana says, and all four of them start laughing.

“It’s either that or they all go back to playing Animal Crossing all day, every day. At least this gets them out of the house.” Z tells them.

Eve feels Oksana go completely still next to her, and looks over to see her focused on something, looking intently at the porch railing and, following her line of sight, Eve sees a tiny face peering at them through the railing, hidden partially by the ferns. The two of them are staring intensely at each other, the little girl’s expression just as intent as Oksana’s. Seeing that Eve’s spotted her, the little face disappears.

“Who’s our little spy?” Eve asks.

“Ada.” Syliva says, and there’s a sad smile on her face. “My daughter.”

“Will she come out and say hello?”

“Ada hasn’t… Ada’s not good with strangers these days.” Z says quietly. Eve can see the faintest stirring of the azaleas at the other end of the long porch, and she’s good at hiding, Eve will give her that.

“Why not?” Oksana asks, and yes her eyes are trained on the slightly swaying flowers too.

“Something happened.” Sylvia says, and her voice is cold, like she’s holding back something big.

“What? What happened?” Oksana picks up on this instantly and just when Eve is going to pull her back, Z goes to Sylvia, reaching out to wrap their hand around Sylvia’s as she turns away.

“She was out playing with the neighbourhood kids about six months ago, and was… approached. Her friends said that a police officer told her he knew her mom, and that there had been an accident, and she needed to come with him.” Eve can see the anger building in Z’s face as they talk.

“I couldn’t find her for hours. I was so frantic, I thought I was going to lose my mind. It wasn’t until midnight that I found her and she was…” Sylvia stops at this, taking in a deep breath. “We don’t know what happened because she’s hardly spoken since then. I have asked her and asked her, but she just… There was blood…”

Eve feels Oksana stiffen next to her at the same time she feels something rising up in herself.

“Did you report him to his higher ups?” Eve asks and Z scoffs bitterly.

“They protect their own. They said that I couldn’t prove it. That her friends were lying, and that she must have just wandered off and gotten lost, and because she won’t talk about what happened.” Sylvia hisses. “Told me that my daughter wouldn’t have gotten lost if I had been a better mother and watched her closer.”

“This man who did this to her. What’s his name?” And it’s Villanelle now, Eve can see it in the predatory stillness, the slight sneer.

“Sang-chul Lee.”

“Where does he live?” Villanelle asks in a low voice, and Eve can feel it in her, that darkness, her monster being called out by Villanelle’s.

Sylvia doesn’t answer at first, instead she looks at Eve, then at Villanelle, and Eve knows that she’s seeing the truth of them.

“Outside of town. But he likes to go to a bar most nights out in the tourist district called Sumgyeojin. Likes to hit on the young white tourists, buy them drinks. Luckily most of them refuse.” Sylvia says. “God help those who don’t, though, after they realize what he’s put in it.”

And Villanelle is so still next to her now, that preternatural calmness that she’s seen in her before, and Eve turns to her, and they are so connected that Eve can feel them working as a single entity, now united with the same intent.

Eve sees a small shadow curling up the steps. Ada hides behind her mom and stares at Villanelle. She creeps forward then, and they all go completely silent, lest they spook her, until she’s in front of Villanelle, still with their eyes locked.

“Hi.” Villanelle says to her, and Ada narrows her eyes, then holds out her clenched hand, palm down. “You got something for me?”

Ada nods and when Villanelle reaches out she drops a rock into her hand.

“This is a shitty gift.” Villanelle says, and just as Eve groans at how inappropriate this is, Ada is grinning.

“Shitty!” She crows out, grinning.

“Shitty!” Villanelle says again, laughing and then Ada is giggling too, and grabs both of Villanelle’s hands and pulls on her until she’s standing. “Wow, you are like, freakishly strong.”

Ada is dragging her out into the yard, towards the swing set Eve can see in the distance, and Eve can hear Oksana (because this is Oksana again, her sweet babygirl) saying bet I get there first! and they’re racing towards them.

“You got a picture of this guy?” Eve says, turning back to Sylvia, who’s watching the two play with a tremulous smile on her face. She looks back at Eve, and sees what’s really being asked.

“I sure do.”

“I think that we’d be interested in that.” Eve says, and all three of them know exactly what’s about to happen, and she can sense that darkness in them too, not just a darkness, but a rage.

____

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	14. Some people deserve to die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And when I said 14 chapters, of course I meant 15, because I don't know how to count. :)
> 
> Thanks for all the great responses to the ABO idea. I think it's gonna happen, probably soon too.

_You can run on for a long time_  
_Run on for a long time_  
_Run on for a long time_  
_Sooner or later God'll cut you down_  
_Sooner or later God'll cut you down_

Villanelle lays out the plan while they get ready. She’s going to be the lure, an innocent looking, young, British tourist traveling alone. She looks the part perfectly with a fresh, make-up free face, and in soft, girlish clothes, looking young, younger than she already is. Eve is to blend into the background of the bar, to sit back and wait until Villanelle gets him outside, then it will be up to Eve to do what has to be done.

“You have to come up behind him, like this.” Villanelle says, standing behind her and putting two fingers between Eve’s left side ribs. “Slip the knife here, deep, and twist it a little. This will puncture his liver, and he will die a very painful death.”

“Good.” Eve says, turning around to face her. “Are you okay with what’s about to happen?”

“Are you?”

“I have rarely wanted to do something more than end this asshole’s life.”

“This is murder, Eve. You’re causing a death. That’s something you’re going to be carrying for the rest of your life. Are you ready to handle that?”

She reaches out to hold Villanelle’s face between her hands, looking at her with an unwavering expression.

“I am, babygirl. If this is the only way that justice can be done, then let me be the one to do it.” She says with utter certainty in her voice. “How about you? Are you okay with being implicit in this?”

“There is no way I can let you do this alone, Eve. Things can do very wrong, very fast, when you’re trying to kill someone.”

“But are you okay with the fact that you’re going to be a part of another death?”

And it’s Villanelle, fully, who is looking back at her, mouth curling up in a calculating grin.

“Some people deserve to die.”

Eve can feel something rising in her at the same time she can see it starting to rise in Villanelle, and suddenly Eve feels like something else is taking over, some other part of her being that she’s only glimpsed, is now coming out to stretch its legs. Eve feels its purring, this animalistic darkness, at seeing Villanelle, at recognizing her mate.

“Before I have to watch you flirt with another person again, I want to make sure you know something, that even in the midst of your trickery and role playing, you have something that reminds you who you are and who you belong to.” Eve opens the velvet box on the nightstand, and takes the collar in her hands. “Come here.”

She watches as Villanelle pulls her bottom lip in and presses her teeth into it, and there’s a flush staining her cheeks as she’s walking to her. Eve reaches up to settle the steel ring about her neck, snaps it shut, then nestles it into the lacy high collar of Villanelle’s blouse, so it’s barely visible, looking innocuously like a necklace. With the tip of her finger hooked in the O ring in the front, Eve not-so-gently pulls Villanelle to her, down so she can kiss her.

“Never forget that you’re mine, little kitten.”

“Never,” Villanelle breathes out, “never, ever, ever.”

“Good girl.” She kisses her again, and this time, it’s carnal, hungry, and she’s grabbing Villanelle with rough hands on her ass, in her hair. “Can’t wait to do this with you, babygirl.”

“And you, _malishka_ , you are going to be so fucking hot, god…” Villanelle arches into her, her breathing is getting ragged, but before things can go any farther, Eve pulls away to look, to see that darkness, the monster in Villanelle, flashing in her eyes, looking back at her.

“Let’s go play.”

They get to the trendy bar in the tourist district around 10. Before they get out of the cab, Villanelle leans over and whispers into Eve’s ear.

“I’ve brought us something, something for you to use, for later,” and she’s running her hand over the embroidered hippie bag she’s carrying, and fuck, Eve is dying to know what it is. “Do a good job, and you’ll find out.”

“Even collared, you’re still bossy. What a fucking bratty bottom you are.” Eve says, smirking.

The bar is already full of a mix of drunk, young, white tourists, and the few locals obviously there to find a hookup. Eve sees several girls dressed like Villanelle is, like they’re on their way to Coachella, got lost and ended up in Asia. Watching the door, she sees Villanelle come in, fully in character, and start to walk across the room.

Eve spots him at the same time Villanelle does, apparently, because when she’s just about to try and get Villanelle’s attention to point him out, she sees her eyes focusing on him, her gaze narrowing. Moving towards the bar next to where he’s sitting, Villanelle is all smiles and innocence. She leans up on the bar, saying something to the bartender, while she takes a quick little glance at Sang-chul, like she’s interested, and of course, he’s responding.

Eve spends the next two hours standing at a safe distance back against the wall, pretending to be looking at her phone while she tries to stay out of everyone’s sightlines. Dressed in a dark, long sleeved, knee length dress, she’s no different from any of the other locals who are here. Always, she keeps an eye on Villanelle and their prey, watching as she giggles at his jokes, and gently lays her hand on his arm, her eyes wide and rapturous, like every word out of his mouth is captivating, and of course, the hubris of this asshole, he thinks that someone as beautiful as her would actually be interested in him. Everyone around them are paying absolutely no attention to them, everyone too intent on their own good time to notice another blonde girl getting hit on by a local.

He orders them drinks and Eve watches as Villanelle pretends to be distracted to give him the opportunity to hold his hand out and inconspicuously sprinkle something into her drink. Just as craftily a few minutes later, Villanelle gets him to look away and subtly switches their glasses. When he looks back, she proceeds to take a couple of big gulps of hers, and Eve can see the look on this asshole’s face as she does, triumphant, and fuck she can not wait to use the knife hidden in her bag to fucking end him.

Whatever he put in that drink hits him pretty fast after that and he starts to stumble and slur while he’s trying to paw at her, to wrap his arms around her and pull her to him, pressing his mouth to her ear, and the rage in Eve is rising, like a scalding heat filling every inch of her, at the sight of this disgusting excuse of a person manhandling her, touching her so aggressively. Villanelle falls into it, arousing no suspicions, the consummate actress, slowly shifting him off his bar stool, and he’s so out of it now that she’s half carrying him through the disinterested crowd to and through the door.

Eve slips out quietly afterwards, keeping ten feet back as she watches Villanelle lead him down to the side of the building, around the corner to the long, deserted alley behind the bar. Eve stays hidden in the shadows as she creeps down after them, watches Villanelle shift him so he’s leaning against a dumpster facing her, and she’s looking, searching and then her eyes lock with Eve’s, and a little sneering grin flashes on her face as Eve walks up to them. Eve pulls out the long knife slowly and it feels right in her hand, the weight of it, an implement of justice. This is a gift she’s about to give the word, because this is what evil really is, the abuse of power to crush the innocence of another.

She creeps up behind him, morphing from the shadows into the shape of an avenging angel. Villanelle grabs him then, pulling his body to hers so his back is there, exposed and without any hesitancy, Eve stabs the knife deep into him.

He seizes, back arching, mouth and eyes wide with shock, and Eve pulls out the knife and stabs him again, her teeth bared.

“Die, you piece of shit.” She hisses at him as he swings around, away from Villanelle, and lunges for her, but Villanelle is there, grabbing him by his arms, locking them behind his back, presenting him to Eve, and fuck, fuck, she’s stabbing him again, in the chest, over and over, and she’s letting out this long guttural sound, like a growl, feral, feeling the give of his flesh under her knife, the ripping, the bubbling of the blood pouring and pouring out of him, coating his front, Eve’s hands, the sound of it filling his lungs as he struggles to breathe, his eyes full of absolute terror.

“Now you know what it means to be the one who is hunted, who is crushed.” Villanelle jeers at him, her voice like a poison in his ear. “You are going to die alone and in agony, at the hands of a woman, surrounded by filth and trash like the piece of human garbage you are.”

Villanelle releases him then, stepping away, and he falls to his knees, his hands uselessly fumbling at the gaping wounds in his chest, and Eve watches as the life leaves his eyes, as the terror inside overtakes him and he’s pissing himself with it and it’s the last thing he will ever feel.

Villanelle grabs her hand then, and they’re walking away, unhurried, blood making their grip slippery. They slip down dark alley after dark alley, unseen, and they’re both breathing rapidly, like they’ve been running, and Eve can feel her heart racing, adrenaline making her feel like her whole body is alive, her heart thundering in her chest, frizzling with electricity and fuck, right now, she has to have her right now. She stops suddenly, pulling Villanelle back to her.

“Eve?” Villanelle asks, and she knows the exact moment she realizes what Eve wants.

Shoving her back against a brick wall, with the shadows cloaking them, Eve crashes their mouths together, and their kisses are hungry, devouring, Eve biting at Villanelle’s lips so hard she can taste blood, can smell the blood on her clothes, on her hands, on Villanelle’s clothes, they’re bathed in it, the rush of the kill a drug coursing through both of them. She’s roughly pinching Villanelle’s nipples through the thin fabric of her dress, digging her fingernails into the soft flesh of the wrist she has pinned to the wall, and Villanelle is begging her, begging for it.

“My bag, look in my bag.” Villanelle gasps out between ragged breaths. Eve pulls back, and reaches into her bag and pulls a smooth dildo, nestled into the O ring of a beautifully supple leather harness.

“I want you to fuck me, Eve. I want you to split me open on your cock,” and yes, god, yes, this is what she wants, what she wanted in this moment without even realizing it.

“Put it on me.” Eve tells her, voice controlled and deadly, and Villanelle has a devil’s grin on her face as she reaches out to lift Eve’s dress to her waist, and secure the harness around her hips, then wraps her hand around the dildo, stroking it up and down like she’s giving it a fucking hand job, and fuck, she is, she is giving her a hand job, because god, she’s got a cock now, she has the ultimate display of male power strapped to her, and she’ll be damned if she’s letting Villanelle take control while she has it.

She slaps Villanelle’s hand out of the way, then grabs her by the throat with her blood stained hands, just under her silver collar, holding her to the wall with not-so-gentle pressure, and uses her other hand to slip Villanelle’s panties to the side, flicking her fingers roughly, cruelly, through Villanelle’s slit, and god, she’s so wet, she’s flooded, dripping, so ready for her. Eve hoists one of Villanelle’s knees up to her waist to open her up fully, positioning the dildo and thrusts up and fuck, fuck, fuck, she’s inside of her, and she thrusts again, deep, pinning her against the wall on her cock and the smell of their sex, of the blood, it’s thick and heady in her nose, and they’re making these deep guttural noises and rutting like the wild creatures they are, covered in the blood of their kill.

“Look at me, Villanelle. Look at me.” She hisses at Villanelle, her bloody hand still wrapped around her throat, staining the pale flesh there.

Villanelle is gasping, panting, flushed, her face damp with sweat, but her eyes are focused, intent when they lock onto hers and she’s nothing but lust, pure lust, pouring out of every part of her and she’s begging for it, she’s fucking begging for it.  
“Please, Eve, please…”

“Take it. Fucking take it.” She hisses at Villanelle in a voice she’s never heard come out of her own mouth before.

“Yes, baby, yes, give it to me, baby, fuck me so hard, baby.” Villanelle begs her in a voice strained by the hand on her throat.

Fuck, now she’s driving into her, fast, deep, again, and again, and again, babygirl taking my cock so good, such a dirty girl, fucking loves it, begging for it, aren’t you, and Villanelle is answering, her voice strained against where Eve’s palm is pressed to her throat, yes, yes, baby, I am, god I want it so bad, baby, harder, more, more, and Eve feels an aching, a suddenly impulse and she reaches out to tear the collar of Villanelle’s dress, ripping it until her chest is exposed, and leans forward to sink her canines into the tender skin of her breast.

Villanelle is coming, screaming, it echoing in the dark around them, and the feeling of it, of Villanelle coming on her cock tears through Eve, and she’s coming too, and every single fucking part of her feels it, feels herself in Villanelle and Villanelle in her, feels the fucking universe aligning, and this is it, this is what she is, this devouring hungry monster consuming, screaming, scorching the earth of everything that she ever thought she was before.

____

malishka - baby


	15. A flying princess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And after this, we're moving on to 5 outsider POV chapters. I'm excited for you guys to read them!

_When you're lost_   
_You're alone and you can't get back again_   
_I'll find you, darling, and I'll bring you home_

_And if you want to cry_   
_I am here to dry your eyes_   
_And in no time, you'll be fine_

They get into the big waterfall shower together when they get home, sneaking in at the darkest part of the night like witches returning home from a nightly run of terror. There’s been no words from either of them since they’d broken apart in that alley, panting, Villanelle’s dress torn open, a trickle of blood coming from the wound on her breast, teeth flashing, looking like the embodiment of unfettered female rage, deadly and unstoppable and Eve tasting that blood in her mouth, Villanelle’s blood in her now for always.

Villanelle moves the little bamboo stool to the middle of the shower and pushes Eve down to sit in the pouring water, then, kneeling in front of her, takes each hand, each arm, running a bar of spicy smelling soap over Eve’s skin, washing away the blood that’s stained it, cleaning off the violence and the gore, quietly studious as she does, like an accolade performing a holy task for the creature she’s devoted herself to. Eve watches her do this, traces drops of water as they form and fall from Villanelle’s eyelashes as the shower pours over her sleek blonde head. In this moment, in this place, Eve feels completely calm, centered. She’s never had this sense of utter contentment before in her life, and now she truly knows what her purpose is, what she is meant to be doing, and where she is meant to be. Exacting justice, with this beautiful woman by her side.

After, they’re laying in bed, naked, skin still dewy, all the sheets thrown back as the slowly spinning fan above them stirs the air, mixing with the light breeze coming in through the big open windows. Eve is on her side, and she’s taking in all of the naked flesh in front of her, the body of this woman, somewhere between Villanelle and Oksana, shimmering back and forth between the deadly viper and the blossoming girl who’s opening herself to Eve.

Slowly, so slowly, she moves her fingers over all this skin, trailing them down a long neck still wrapped in the silver collar, the divot in her throat where the small O ring lays perfectly, then tracing the shape of each lush breast, stroking her knuckles softly back and forth over the curve of it, the so soft skin, the glistening bite mark, watching as the nipples tighten, pebbling, then bending over to flick her tongue at them, because she’s has to, she can’t not. She trails her tongue down the valley between the breasts, damp and a little salty with sweat as she’s starting to writhe a bit at all the sensations, down over the soft belly, moving until she’s crouched between her legs, and she’s pushing open her thighs, and she’s there, she’s where she’s never been before, but it’s her sweet babygirl, her own little kitten, and then she’s drinking her in, lapping up all that she’s being given.

For the first time since they started to share a bed, Eve wakes up before Oksana the next morning. She takes a moment to look at her, sleeping deeply on her back, her bare chest exposed to the morning light, her face completely relaxed, little soft snores rhythmically coming from slightly open lips, and she looks so peaceful, so young, and Eve can’t bring herself to wake her up.

She dresses quietly in a pair of dove grey cotton shorts and a pale pink camisole that shows off the angular planes of her upper body, then goes out into the house, walking until she hears the soft sound of talking out in the sunroom. It’s Umma and Sylvia and Z sitting around a table laden with a Korean style breakfast that Eve hasn’t seen in a long time; galbi, spicy seafood salad, kongnamul bab, oi naengguk, radish strip kimchi. Smelling all these savory spices and flavours, Eve’s mouth starts to water, and she realizes that she is absolutely starving.

 _“Ah, good morning, granddaughter. Where is the lovely Oksana?”_ Umma asks, grinning at Eve as she watches her load up a plate.

 _“Still sleeping,”_ Eve says, then starts to shovel the food in her mouth, and Jesus Christ, it’s so good, and there’s so much and this is what she has been wanting.

 _“Exhausted from last night, I’m guessing.”_ Umma says, with a bit of a smirk. “ _And not just from all the sex, most likely_.”

 _“Umma!”_ Eve says with a mouthful of short ribs and all the women laugh lightly at her embarrassment.

 _“Come on now, Eve, you’re American! I thought all they did there was talk about sex.”_ Umma says.

 _“Usually not first thing in the morning with their grandmother.”_ Eve responds, to which Umma waves her hand dismissively.

 _“Ah, that country is a mess. Now,”_ she leans forward to catch Eve’s eye. _“How did it go last night? Is it done?”_

Eve stops, taking her napkin to wipe her mouth, then taking a drink of her dalgona coffee. She looks over at Sylvia and sees her face tight with tension.

 _“It’s done.”_ She says, reaching out to touch Sylvia’s hand. _“It’s taken care of.”_

Sylvia takes in a fast, gulping breath, then exhales shakily, tears welling up in her eyes.

_“Eve, I don’t think I can ever…”_

_“It was my pleasure, Sylvia, to wake up this morning and know that there’s one less piece of shit in the world.”_

_“Eve has the gift.”_ Umma murmurs, and all eyes are on her. _“She has the An gift, the strength and the courage to take matters into her own hands. This world tells women they are powerless, degrades them, abuses them, rapes them, beats them, murders them, and they try to make us believe that this is our lot, this is the reason women exist, that being a woman by their definition this is our only option. But it’s not. Some, the brave, the bold, the uncaring, they rise up with their own power, and are able to refuse these bullshit rules, become who they really are. They do what needs to be done for themselves, and for those victimized around them.”_

She reaches out for Eve’s other hand, lowering her chin while she’s locked her gaze with her.

_“Your woman, she’s one of them. I could see it in her soul as soon as I met her. And she has shown you that you have this gift too. Together you will be unstoppable, Eve. You will be the righter of wrongs. You will set free those who don’t have the ability to free themselves. You will exact justice on those who would hurt us. And you will have the power of the oppressors' fear to protect you, to shield you.”_

_“Yes, Umma, yes. Last night, it was like… It was like I finally knew my purpose. Why we were brought together, and what it is that I’m meant to do.”_

_“We have something for you, Eve.”_ Z says, standing up and walking over to the side table to open a drawer and pull out some papers. She comes back to place them in front of Eve; it’s a stock certificate for Umma Tea. _“Everyone in this family owns some of the company, and we are all amply provided for. That includes you, too.”_

 _“I know your woman has money, Eve, but I want to make sure that you do too, so your footing is always equal, and so neither of you have to ever worry about how to fund your mission.”_ Umma tells her. _“Now you will always be taken care of.”_

_“Thank you, Umma, thank you.”_

_“This is such a small gift in return for what you have done, Eve.”_ Sylvia tells her, her voice still shaking. _“The real gift is that little girl out there, playing on her swing set, who never has to fear encountering her attacker ever again.”_

When Oksana finally awakens, she comes outside to find Eve sitting out on the lawn, her weight on her hands behind her with her bare legs out and crossed in front of her, her skin glistening, shining, with a sheen of sweat from the humid day. In the distance, Eve is watching Ada sitting on one of the swings, staring intently at something she’d just coaxed into her hands from the grass below her. Without any preamble, Oksana lays down and puts her head in Eve’s lap, smiling all shiny cheeked up at her.

“Morning, lyubov moya.”

“Morning, babygirl.” Eve smiles back, looking down at her. “How many chins I got from that angle?”

“Just the one.” Oksana says, reaching out a finger to run along Eve’s jawline.

“You speaking Russian again?” Eve asks, because this is definitely a new development she’d like to encourage.

“Yes, I think it’s your turn to learn a new language.”

“Only seems far.” She strokes her finger over Oksana’s plump cheek. “Did you sleep good?”

“So good I slept in longer than you!” Oksana says. “How are you feeling today, after, you know,” she makes an exaggerated face as she mimes stabbing and Eve laughs.

“I’m feeling good, babygirl. Feeling right.”

Unbeknownst to either of them, Ada has managed to sneak up on them, and is now standing a few feet away, dressed in a bedraggled Disney princess dress that’s got grass stains and a torn sleeve, silently regarding them.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Eve says but she’s not looking at her, she’s got her eyes trained on Oksana, who’s sitting up now.

“Why are you wearing that dress?” Oksana asks.

“I’m a princess.” She says, equally as serious.

“Royalty is a tool of the elite to subjugate women and treat them like breeding stock and to extort money from the poor to pay for their lives of unchecked excess.” Oksana says. “Besides, that dress is cheap garbage. I will find you a better one.”

“Will you get one too and then we can play princesses together?”

“Yes. I will order us two big sparkly dresses from Elie Saab. We will look like princesses who have our own money and amazing style and live in a fancy French apartment and are in love with beautiful women.” Ada seems satisfied with this plan, nodding sagely. “We have something to tell you.”

“Oksana…”

“It’s okay, Eve. She needs to know.” Oksana is resolute in this, and turns back to Ada. “You don’t have to be afraid of him anymore. You’re safe now.”

Ada’s bottom lip quivers for just a moment, and then she’s stiff, holding everything in.

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, honey.” Eve says, holding out her hand. “Yes, we do.”

Ada looks at them, back from one face to the next. She must see something, recognize something, because she’s stepping forward to hold Eve’s hand.

“He won’t hurt you again, sweetheart. He won’t hurt anyone ever again.” Eve says, making sure she knows, really knows this. Ada looks over at Oksana, who nods at her.

“Okay.” The little girl says, quietly, looking at both of them. “Thank you, Aunties.”

“You’re welcome, honey.” Eve says.

A smile starts on her little face, growing, and Eve can see something start to open up, to light up her face. She giggles then, and it’s the happiest Eve has yet to see her. She turns back to the swing set, yelling about being a flying princess as she runs across the lawn.

“We’re aunties!” Oksana says, bouncing a little.

“Looks like it, Auntie Oksana.”

“Heeee!” Oksana squeals out in pure delight, then settles back into Eve’s lap, eyes closed and sighing with total contentment.

Eve starts to stroke her hair back from her forehead, thinking about the little girl that Oksana was once, about the ones around her who hurt her, who manipulated her, who tried to crush her innocence.

“You poor sweet girl,” she whispered, “you never had a champion. You never had a defender.”

Oksana looks up at her with such openness and vulnerability.

“That’s not true, Eve. I did have one. My father, he protected me. He was a good man, and he loved me, and it made…. It made my mother so angry, and I knew even back then that she was jealous, of his attention being on me, of my devotion to him and she punished me for that.” Oksana says, then sitting up, tearing at the grass with her fingers, eyes down.

“To make you believe that you had darkness in you, that there was something wrong within you before you could even form your own ideas of yourself… It was her who was the one with the darkness.” Eve says, full of venom at this dead woman. “Babygirl, I am so sorry. But I am so happy to know you had someone in your life then who saw you for the sweet girl you are.”

“I am too, even if I can barely remember it. But after my father died, after she took me to the orphanage, I truly had no one. I remember feeling like… like I was broken, and that this was all my fault because of it. Then it was like something just… switched off. I was nothing. I felt nothing. I would hurt the girls around me, just to see if they were numb too, but they would cry and cry and I would watch, trying to memorize what they were doing because it was so foreign to me, and I would try to imitate it, to see if I pretended to be sad, then maybe I actually would be. But I never was. I was always just… numb.”

“Don’t you see? You were hobbled from the start. From birth you had someone else telling you who you were, what you were, and you never had a chance to make that discovery on your own. You went from that numbness at being abandoned at the orphanage, and then went to school when you were so vulnerable. And then there was someone who actually noticed her, who told her she was smart, who laughed at her jokes, who smiled when she saw her.” There’s big tears in Eve’s eyes now.

“I know what I did to Anna’s husband was wrong, I knew it then, but all I could think about was how she’d chosen him over me, how I would be alone again, and that all that love and attention and affection would be gone.”

“I don’t think she did it intentionally, but Anna was wrong to pull you in so intimately like she did. I know that at the time you felt very grown up, and the life you had lived had definitely made you mature very quickly, but you were still so young then, and had already endured so much pain, that whether she meant to or not, Anna took that trust and abused her role as the grown up, as the teacher, the one with power, and allowed things to go too far.”

“No, Eve, that’s not it, it was me….”

“I know it was you, but it was her too. She was a part of what happened. You paid the consequences for her misjudgement as much as she did because you ended up trapped in what was literal hell. That’s why the Twelve came to you when they did. What were you going to do, when they asked you to come work for them. Say no? Stay in that horrible prison? Here they were, looking like a savior, offering you an escape, but without you knowing the true price, that of your life, of your soul. Either you stayed there and have to fight to just survive, or you take their offer, and are given shiny things, beautiful things, but then, you’re their tool, their puppet.”

Eve can see this all slowly working its way into Oksana’s mind, sees her contemplating it, sees how the weight of it coming from Eve’s lips is allowing her to see it as the truth it is, as louder and more honest than any other idea that Oksana’s been told about herself, about her life.

“Dasha, and Konstantin, and the Twelve, they all convinced you that all you were good for was violence, was death, because if you believed that, they all got what they wanted. They isolated you, manipulated you, warped your thinking.”

“It didn’t even matter then, Eve.” Oksana says softly. “I was already so numb. All that pain and violence, when I was inflicting it on people, it was the only time I would feel anything, just this little brush of something, and that was why I did it. Because that small feeling was a reminder that I wasn’t just completely dead, completely empty.”

“The woman who did that isn’t the woman who’s here with me now.” Oksana looks up at her with pleading eyes.

“Then who is she?”

“You tell me.” Eve uses her thumb to brush away Oksana’s tears. “Who do you feel like now?”

She sees her contemplate this, looking off to the side as she puzzles through it.

“I know I’m not a tool for other people to use for their own fucked up reasons anymore. I will no longer let those people, Dasha, Konstantin, the Twelve, tell me who I am, and what purpose I am here to serve.” She looks up at Eve again, resolute. “I feel like I’m in control. Like who I am is just being revealed to me now. And I feel like a woman who loves someone who loves her back.”

Eve can’t help but weaken at this, her beautiful sweet girl so trusting, so open.

“I am my own person, and I want to take care of what is important to me.” Oksana says. “You’re important to me, the most important to me, and this life we can have. And I know that I am free.”

Eve feels her whole heart ache with pride for her, this shining angel rising out from the grave.

“Now can we please go inside and try the strap on again? I call dibs this time.”

“Uh uh, no dibs calling.” Eve says. “Whoever gets there first gets to wear it.”

Then they’re both scrambling to their feet, dashing towards the house, and okay, if Eve maybe goes a little slower, then who could blame her really?

____

lyubov moya - my love

[Elie Saab princess dresses](https://ww.fashionnetwork.com/news/Haute-couture-elie-saab-celebrates-the-birth-of-light-,785554.html)


	16. Min

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dedicate this chapter to myself and all the bravery I've shown in the last three months growing out a truly horrible haircut.

Honestly, Min figured she’d probably never see her favorite client ever again. It’d been a while, the longest it had ever been, since she saw her last. And you don’t ever forget about someone like her, like Villanelle.

It wasn’t just that Villanelle was one of the most beautiful women she’d ever seen up close. And it wasn’t even just that she usually tipped at least fifty percent. No, it was the stories that Min craved the most.

Min’s very secret salon was on the Champs-Élysées, and she was very, very selective with her clientele. Usually she would only take on a new client if it was someone that Min wanted out in the world with her work on their heads. She would always charge them what they could afford, so she had a mix of bartenders and baronesses and everything between. Min knew she was a genius when it came to hair. Anyone could cut, colour, style. Min, however, did all of these so well, with such skill, that when she was done, it wasn’t a haircut they had just gotten, it wasn’t just a new colour, or a texture or the way their hair laid. Min was able to make it look like this was the way their hair simply was. She made her alterations look natural and this was her gift to her clients.

Villanelle had come into her life in a way that Min later recognized as Villanelle’s way. The wife of a British duke who spent her entire four hour foiling appointment talking about this stunning French woman she’d met at the opera the night before, about how by the third act she was being pressed into all of the fur coats in the cloak room while this cat eyed mademoiselle was eating her pussy like it was her soul’s purpose to make her come as hard as she could. Min was used to the oversharing; hair stylists are second only to therapists when it came to people opening up about every detail of their lives. But this was different, the way her client described this woman, like she was a changeling, a fae who appeared out of nowhere, put a spell on her, ravished her and then disappeared into the night.

A month later, the Duchess came back, this time with dark circles under her eyes, her face pale and drawn, telling Min that her husband had been killed, laying in bed next to her five days ago, and now she needed her hair done for the funeral. After the Duchess left, about an hour later, the buzzer for the downstairs entrance went off. Min was cleaning up for the day, about to leave, so she was hesitant about letting anyone in. Maybe it was the Duchess? Had she forgotten something? She buzzed the person in, and looked around to see if anything had been forgotten, when there was a presence there, a change in the air in the room, like it had just become charged. Min felt the hair on her arms go up.

A woman was standing there, her eyes cat-like, her mouth a little smirk, wearing archival Prada, and Min didn’t know how she knew, she just knew that this was her, the phantom lover.

“What you did for her, for the duchess. Will you do that for me?” This woman wasn’t French in her voice, though. She was Russian, pure and true.

“I don’t…” Min was having trouble taking in a breath.

“I am not a blonde. I have brown hair. It is dark and dull and I hate it. I want to be a blonde. A shining beautiful natural blonde. I want my hair to be so bright, so nuanced, that it gives my face that quality. That virginal quality natural blondes have. They look so pure, so unguarded, that everyone believes them incapable of doing anything wrong. That’s what I want. I want that air of innocence. Can you do that for me?”

And Min was nodding before she even stopped talking.

“Good. Let’s get started. I have to be in Barcelona by midnight.” She said, going over to Min’s vintage salon chair, not so much sitting in it as sprawling in it. “What are you waiting for?”

Min had trembled that night as she never had before. She had to work very hard to keep her hands still in the beginning, because she knew that she was trapped in a room with someone dangerous. Soon, though, her work became her focus, her salvation as it had so many times before, and she was able to do what her client wanted. When she was finished, the woman had stood up and walked over to the full length mirror next to the door, turning this way and that to look at the cut and colour. Min felt her heart hammering in her throat as she awaited the verdict.

“Perfect.” She said, and Min wasn’t sure if she meant the hair or herself in general. “I will be back.”

With that she left an obscene amount of euros on the desk next to the door and was gone. But she came back, showing up two months later. This second time she was all smiles and jokes, spinning around in the client chair while watching Min mix the colours of her dye, asking her if she’d ever fucked a German before, telling her how much she hated the bar scene in Berlin, and then saying that guarroting is never as easy as it is in the movies.

Min had gone still at this, and she knew instantly that this was a test, that her reaction was being gauged. Thinking of how dull her life had been in the last two months since this creature had flown into her life out of nowhere and right back out, Min realized she wanted, no needed, to keep her coming back.

“What is it really like then?” She said coolly, turning around with the colour bowl in her hands in time to see a Cheshire grin stretch over the other woman’s face.

“Hard on the arms. Better than a rowing machine for your biceps really, though.” Her eyes had narrowed then. “What’s your name?”

“Min.” She lifted her chin as she made eye contact with her. “What’s yours?”

The woman had looked at her, scanned her really, and then smiled.

“Villanelle,” she said.

Villanelle, Min thought. That’s perfect.

For the year after that, she came in regularly. One time, there was blood staining the lightest streaks in her hair and Min had to work to get it out. When she asked how that happened, Villanelle had barely looked up from the French Vogue that she was flipping through.

“Misjudged the arterial spray.” She said, completely nonchalantly, and Min felt something surge through her at this, this complete lack of care about something as sacred as human life.

So when over three months went by without Villanelle showing up unexpectedly, Min began to fear the worse. Was she hurt? Had whoever she had tried to kill this time got her back? She’d just started to give up hope when she’d come back from getting lunch to Villanelle in the salon, spinning in the chair like she liked to do.

This time, though, she wasn’t alone. There was a woman with her, older, Asian, with the most insanely beautiful hair. Min made some kind of unconscious sound at the sight of all that beautiful perfect curl.

“I know right? Amazing, amazing hair.” Villanelle said, grinning at the woman. “Did you miss me, Min?”

“Yes, of course, I did.” Min said. “My life was so boring without your stories, Villanelle.”

“Your stories, huh? Villanelle?” The older woman said, her eyebrow arched at her.

“Hey, always be completely honest with your hairstylist. They hold your whole image in their hands. Hands that hold very sharp scissors right next to your face.” Villanelle grinned back at her. “Min this is my girlfriend, Eve.”

Girlfriend? Okay, Villanelle having an actual girlfriend, as in a relationship with someone beyond fucking them once, that was definitely new.

“Nice to meet you, Eve.” Min said. “I have to tell you, your hair is fucking perfect. I mean, I am an artist, but I don’t think even I could recreate that kind of… effulgent, riotous mass.”

Eve had scoffed at this.

“Trust me, it’s barely under control as it is.” And then Min knew why Villanelle had brought her to her.

“I think I can help. I won’t tamper with perfection, but I can make it somewhat easier on you.” She said in her most professional voice.

“I mean, this one over here says you’re a miracle worker, so why not.” Eve said, gesturing to Villanelle who was by then grinning at the both of them.

“How about you, Vill? We doing your roots today? I can see them from here.”

“Actually,” she stretches out her legs and her arms, looking at her hands in front of her. “Actually, I’m thinking of… seeing who she is. The one with the roots.”

“Really?” This was completely shocking. Villanelle had always been so disdainful of her natural colour, no matter how much Min would praise it. “Just the colour then?”

“No… No, I think I want to look more… lesbotronic.”

When she was done, she’d given Villanelle her rich chocolatey brown colour back, its warmth had made her golden skin even more glowy, and the shaggy ends of the short cut, the curling bits along her neck like little kisses on the soft skin there, the top swooping up and back cut so perfectly that all Villanelle would have to do to style it is run her fingers through her hair several times, maybe just a bit roughly. Min figured she’d have some very eager help in doing that, judging by the look Eve’s when she had seen her new look.

She had trimmed the ends and put in some very subtle layers into Eve’s mass of curls, and given her this amazing product that had actual stem cells and cost about 400 euros for a small bottle. It was worth it for how instantly and perfectly it helped define each curl. By the end it was an almost black mixed with a chestnut highlighted cloud about her face, and Min knew she’d done a good job by the stark hunger in Villanelle’s eyes when she was touching it.

“We’ll see you again in two months.” Villanelle said, pulling out an even bigger wad of cash that time and leaving it in the usual spot. “As always, excellent work.”

____

[V's hair, inspired by my eternal muse](https://www.hairstylestars.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/how-to-style-short-hair-Kristen-Stewart.jpg)


	17. Carolyn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG writing as Carolyn was SO FUN.

It was this third murder that really allowed Carolyn to make the connection.

The first one that had popped up on her radar was in Kiev. An arms dealer had been found dead with his own severed penis in his mouth. It was later revealed that he had raped a young woman the year before, one of the maids who worked in his home. It would have been just another note in this man’s bulging file of misdeeds, but Carolyn noticed it and kept it in the back of her mind.

Three months later it was a cop in a small town in Kentucky. He’d been accused of shooting a black trans woman, one he’d pulled over for having a headlight out (to which the deeply buried internal investigation said wasn’t true) and when she’d turned to get her license out of her purse on the seat next to her, he’d open fired, claiming she was reaching for a weapon. The case got little to no coverage, a dead black trans woman not a big enough deal to warrant any real outrage in that part of America, apparently.

He’d been found sliced down the middle of his body, gutted, hanging in the meat locker of his hunting shack deep in the woods next to the doe he’d shot illegally the day before. Seems he had a thing for innocent prey.

This third one, though, that’s the one that had allowed her to be sure. There was CC footage of this one, a camera hidden in a doorway that the killers weren’t aware of. It had captured two women, one shorter than the other, dark hair, and the taller woman, also dark hair, and Carolyn knew instantly who it was, recognized it more in the back and forth of their actions, the seamless unity of their movements, one holding while the other attacked. No one else was able to get any kind of ID though, with the footage so blurry and the two women moving so fast as they came down upon the man they hunted that it was more like an animal attack.

This one had taken place in Portofino. He was a film director who’d been accused of raping a little girl years ago, who’d fled the US to avoid prosecution and had been living a fat, comfortable life in Italy since, still making his frankly underwhelming movies, even winning awards. His death had been met with many, many accolades in America, with celebrities posting on their instagram about how a predator was finally punished for his crime, and the girl he had raped, now a fully grown woman with children of her own, released a statement thanking whoever is was who’d ended his life.

She’d sent out a message then, attempting to get in contact. Not to bring them in. No, that would be a waste of a good asset. Carolyn had a larger idea in mind. She left a card at the Sacai store in Milan addressed to Marcy and Jen, asking if they’d like to play bingo in Northwich on Wednesday evening. She was not disappointed when she’d arrived half way through game play to find the two of them sitting at one of the long tables, flanked by old ladies with troll dolls and lucky commemorative china bells with Princess Diana on them, a dozen cards spread out in front of the two of them, both deeply invested in winning.

“Hello, Eve.”

“Hey.” Eve seemed to barely register her as she scanned her card.

“How have things been?” She asks as she sits in the empty chair next to her.

“Oh, you know, good. My plan to fuck my way through menopause is fully in action. Turns out the best cure for vaginal dryness is Villanelle.” Villanelle snorts at this, but her attention doesn’t leave her cards. “How’s the Twelve?”

“I haven’t read my Bible recently, but I think for most of them it turned out rather well. Except poor Paul though. But he was a misogynist so he probably had it coming.”

“Paul did seem to not be into women. I mean, from what I remember. From the bible.”

“Yes, Eve, I get it. We’re speaking in double talk. It’s all very obfuscated. Now can we get down to why I asked to meet?”

“B-9!” The rather portly, smoking gentleman at the stage in the front announced, and Villanelle growled.

“FUCK! I NEED B-10!” She says, her eyes scanning the cards like her life depended on it, hand poised with the dabber like she’d once wielded a knife.

“What do you want, Carolyn?” Eve says, finally looking up from her card.

“I would like to offer you employment again.”

Eve looks at her for a moment, two, and then bursts out laughing so loud that all the old ladies, and Villanelle, shush her with annoyed looks.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Well, not employment. More like… suggestions. Recommendations.”

“Of?”

“Of certain people who have… slipped through the cracks. Have committed a hideous act against another, against an innocent, and have managed, due to their position or their connections or their money, to get away with it.”

Eve looks at her again, a long searching look.

“Why would you think that would be something I’d want?”

“Eve, don’t be naive.” Carolyn and Villanelle both say at the same time, and finally this breaks Villanelle’s focus, and she apparently just notices that Carolyn is there.

“Carolyn, hello.” She says, smiling flirtatiously. “I love this jacket on you. Ferragamo?”

“Yes, though it’s several years old.”

“A classic. Love it.” Villanelle leans back, giving Carolyn a whole body look.

“Oh I think that they just said B-10 and that lady over there got bingo.” Eve says, giving Villanelle a narrow eyed look of annoyance.

“SHIT! WAIT!! BINGO!!! I HAVE BINGO!!!” Villanelle jumps up, waving her card in her hand as she runs to the front.

“Okay, so you know what I would do with this information.” Eve says, focusing again. “But I’m not going to be your personal assassin, Carolyn. I’m not going to kill whoever you choose for me. I’m going to need proof, reports, not just about their crimes but about their whole deal so I know this isn’t motivated by your… other interests.”

“I assure you Eve, that under my management the focus is no longer chaos and more… control.”

“Yeah, sure.” Eve looks unconvinced, and really Carolyn can’t blame her.

“The only thing I will ask is for you to be careful. I can stop some of the coverage, the follow ups, but I need you, both of you, to stay off the radar. I want you to blend in, to be unremarkable to those around you every day. You need to keep your faces unrecognizable. Anonymous. The last thing we need is for people to start connecting the dots. I may not be able to get that genie back in the bottle.”

“Yeah, okay, that makes sense. We can do that. We can stay… subtle.”

Carolyn watches as Villanelle humps the air as she’s given the prize of a photo laminator for this round then looks back at Eve.

“We’ll try, okay? But you try containing that.” Eve says, gesturing to Villanelle laughing at all the sour faces the old ladies are giving her as she returns with her trophy.

Carolyn gets up then, taking a moment to really look at the both of them.

“You look good, Eve. You look… lighter.” Eve’s clearly taken aback at this rather intimate observation.

Carolyn turns to go, intending to leave it at that, but stops before she does, looking back at Villanelle now sitting down next to Eve, all proud smiles.

“I like the hair, Oksana.”

____

[Carolyn's vintage Ferragamo coat which is TO DIE FOR ](https://www.1stdibs.com/fashion/clothing/coats-outerwear/salvatore-ferragamo-vintage-avant-garde-wool-cocoon-cape-coat-scarf/id-v_1402833/)


	18. Dylan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully will be posting the first chapter of my ABO fic in the next two weeks! I'm already having such a blast writing it!

Dylan would be lying if he said he never eavesdropped on his customers’ conversation. The bar at the Beverly Hills Hotel is usually full of some very interesting people, and some of the stuff he’s heard, well shit, let’s just say a lot of it has ended up in the screenplay he’s been working on for the last two years.

It’s a great story, about a kid from New Hampshire who moves to LA to become an actor, but instead gets insider information about some of the highest in power in Hollywood, and uses that information to blackmail them into giving him the lead in the next big blockbuster, but then suddenly, he’s killed, and they say it’s a suicide but… look buddy, this ain’t no suicide.

That last bit is a line that the hard boiled cop says right in the opening scene when they discover the actor’s dead body, and then it flashes back to him arriving in LA, all bright eyed and innocent.

Anyways, it doesn’t sound like much, but Dylan pitched it to a guy who said he was in charge of financing new projects at Warner Bros, and he was totally into it. (Of course later Dylan found out he was actually just in accounting, but hey, he liked it, didn’t he?)

So yeah, he listens in. You try not to listen in when it’s late Tuesday afternoon and the only people in the bar are a bunch of bloated drunks waiting for the ratings numbers to be released so they can call their assistants and tell them to start packing up their office because The Fat Happy Baby isn’t going to have a third season.

The one chick, he doesn’t even notice when she comes in. Swear to god, he turned towards the bar to get the bottle of Drambuie and then when he turns back, there’s this Asian woman there, with a completely placid look on her face.

She’s gotta be like 50 or something, but honestly Dylan is bad with women’s ages. When his last boss at the In n Out asked him how old he thought she was he said 55, and the rage in her eyes let him know that he had definitely fucked up and guessed too old. So whatever. Some older lady.

“Can I get you anything, ma’am?” He asks with his best charming bartender smile.

“Pinot Gris, please.” She says and when she makes eye contact with him, Dylan freezes.

He doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, but this lady, something is like, fuck, man. He’s scared shitless and he doesn’t know why. He turns away instantly because he can’t keep looking into those eyes.

“Any particular kind?”

“She’ll have the Quails Gate, the 2016 if you have it.” He turns back around at this new voice, and just as silently another woman has appeared. She’s younger, with short dark hair, wearing a very well tailored suit. Full on power lesbian.

“Of course. I’ll just have to go get it out of refrigerated storage.” He says smoothly, giving no outward sign that he’s getting just as much bad juujuu from this new chick as well. What the fuck?

He takes a second to shake off the weirdness when he goes to the other end of the bar and finds the bottle he’s looking for, then brings it back down to them.

“I hope you don’t mind the recommendation,” the power lesbian says to the older woman.

“No, not at all. Though honestly, it all tastes the same to me.” The power lesbian huffs out a laugh at this.

“Well I’m glad I’m here to broaden your palate then.” They smile at each other, the lesbian’s grin definitely giving Dylan predator vibes. The other woman doesn’t seem phased by it at all.

Dylan uncorks the bottle, pulls out two glasses because he’s smart enough to realize that this is something that is meant for the both of them. He pours a small amount in each glass, and pushes them forward for the tasting.

The power lesbian takes the glass by the stem, swirling it around, sniffing it, and it’s seamless, a practiced gesture and Dylan can see this is someone who knows what they’re doing. She sips it slowly as he and the other woman watch, waiting for her verdict.

“Very good.” She says finally, placing the glass down again. “Do you want to try as well?”

“No, I trust your refined palate.” The older woman says, lifting an eyebrow at her. Dylan fills both glasses half way.

“Cheers, ladies.” He says, then recorks the bottle and puts it in the fridge behind the bar. He moves away from them, but not too far away. He takes his bar towel and starts to polish the same high ball glasses he was polishing fifteen minutes ago, because, fuck man, he needs to know what the deal is with these two.

“So what brings you to Los Angeles?” The power lesbian asks.

“I’m actually a film director. I work out of Korea. I’m here to pitch the sequel to Parasite. It’s called Parasite 2: Electric Boogaloo” The older woman answers.

“Oh wow. That’s impressive.” The power lesbian says, with a smirk on her face.

“How about you?”

“I’m here for the Bikini Convention.”

“The bikini convention?” The Asian woman responds, deadpan.

“Yeah. I’m a bikini salesperson. Out here from Illinois.”

Dylan watches from the corner of his eye at the two of them holding each other’s gaze, both deadly serious.

“What kind of bikinis do you sell?”

“Very very small ones.”

“So, easy to transport then.”

“Oh yes, I have my whole stock in one suitcase up in my room.” The power lesbian grins. “I bet I have one in your size, maybe you’d like to come up and check them out.”

They’re staring at each other again, like they’re having some kind of like, staring contest or something. What the fuck….

“I would love to, but unfortunately bikinis are illegal in Korea.”

“Wow, I didn’t know that. And here I was about to give a speech at the convention about the possibility of expanding sales into the Asian market.”

“Hate to be the bearer of bad news.”

“No, it’s good to know now before I am up on the stage in front of all of the Western United States bikini salesmen.”

“Well then, glad I could help.” The Asian woman turns away, lifting her wine glass and taking a big long drink. “This is pretty good. Tastes kinda nutty.”

“Ah, look! You do have a refined palate!”

“I’ve been accused of worse.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

They go silent again, the older woman sipping her wine again while the power lesbian fixes her stare on to the side of her face.

“You think you’re pretty clever.” The power lesbian says.

“Think. Know. Yes.”

“God, you’re hot.” And this finally throws the older woman off her game. She sputters into her glass, coughing as she clears wine out of her windpipe. The power lesbian has this huge grin on her face now. “Why are you really here at this bar?”

“I’m meeting my husband here.” The older woman says, her voice still rough.

“Husband.”

“Yeah. Me and him took the kids out here from Baltimore to go to Disneyland and Universal Studios. He’s got them right now, told me to come have a glass of wine while he takes them to TGIFridays for dinner.”

“Hmm, nice husband.” The power lesbian says. “How long have you been married?”

“Ten years next fall.”

“That’s wonderful.” Dylan’s trying to see if he can notice a wedding ring on the older woman’s finger but he can’t tell from where he is, so he guesses that this must actually be the truth.

“How about you? Why you really here?”

“I’m the top seller of Botox in California. I’m here to receive an award from the Plastic Surgeons of Beverly Hills for all my exemplary work.”

“Wow, that must be an interesting job….”

With this Dylan heaves a sigh. Fucking boring same old same old. He puts down his bar towel and goes out to clear tables, completely forgetting about the two women as the after dinner rush comes in, and he’s on his own because Marissa was supposed to start at 6 but she got an audition for three lines on Miss Marpole’s American Adventures and he owed her for when she covered for him that time he went to that screenwriters class out in the valley that ended up being a total scam.

One of the times he’s back refilling their glasses he interrupts the power lesbian saying that Cher alone buys enough from her to pay for both her Maserati and her Land Rover. The next time it’s the other woman talking about how her oldest son just won an award for his project on climate change. Still boring.

It’s not until a couple of hours later, once they’ve finished off the bottle of wine that Dylan has the time to go over and see if they’re done. They don’t notice him as he approaches, and where their conversation has gone stops him before he can say anything.

“I mean, I miss her, you know. Courtney was the best sex I ever had.” The older woman is saying. “It’s funny, because you remind me of her, a bit.”

“Was she a devastatingly attractive saleswoman too?” The power lesbian says, smirking, and the other woman is grinning and rolling her eyes, and it’s like, it’s like this is something they’ve practiced, this is a routine, a bit or something.

Is this a couple of Improv actors doing some kind of exercise? Maybe he should ask them if it’s part of Upright Citizens Brigade. He’s been trying to get into there for years now.

“She had that thing you have. That swagger. Honestly it’s what attracted me to her in the first place.”

“Really?” The power lesbian is arching an eyebrow now. “Hey, bartender, can we get another bottle of this?”

How the fuck did she know he was even there, he thinks, jumping out of his skin a bit at suddenly being seen.

“Of course, just one moment.”

So he starts them on another bottle, and then, even though Marissa is finally there, it’s so busy that he only hears bits and pieces of their conversation then, the older woman calling the power lesbian sweetheart and telling her that she’s got eyes like a cat, and later, the lesbian telling her that she should take her hair down.

“I bet you have a beautiful head of hair.”

“Oh, I always keep it up now. So much easier when you’re looking after a husband and kids.” And then Dylan has to go re-up the marketing guys at table five’s martinis and it isn’t until later he sees the older woman shaking out a headful of huge curls and watches power lesbian unconsciously lick her lips.

It’s close to 11 then, and Dylan is taking his smoke break down in the service hallway because everyone smokes there even though you’re not allowed to. He hears a door open and quickly throws the cigarette down and steps on it then jumps back to hide in the staircase behind him.

“I missed you, baby.” he hears someone say, the voice echoing down the hallway and shit, it’s the power lesbian.

“Took you long enough to find me.” And fuck it’s the older lady, and their voices are rushed, and they’re panting. Dylan leans his head out just enough to see the power lesbian pushing the other woman up against the wall, kissing her.

“Well, a copy of Disneyland reservations for a family of four wasn’t a lot to go on.”

“Hey, you had a date and location.”

“You know how many family of four reservations there were for Disneyland today?”

“It’s not my fault you didn’t see me outside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. I waited all afternoon.”

“I was at the Haunted Mansion!”

It’s silent then for one second, two, three, four, five and then it’s nothing but snorting laughter.

“You’ve never stepped foot in Anaheim.” The older woman is saying.

“Well, neither have you!”

“Thank god. Disneyland sounds terrifying.”

“How was Prague?” the power lesbian (is she? Who actually is this chick?) asks.

“Fast. Two to the chest and one to the head. Never saw it coming.”

WHAT THE FUCK.

Okay this isn’t some improv exercise or some kind of sex thing. Dylan starts to fear he might actually shit himself because that was no joke, that was said completely seriously and who the fuck are these two women? What kind of psychotic shit is going on?!

“That’s my girl, just like I taught you.” Dylan is absolutely frozen in terror now. “Did you really have a girlfriend in college?” And there’s an edge to this, a slight little tremor of… nervousness?

“No, babygirl. You were the first female to plunder my fields, I promise.” The older woman says.

“Good.” The other woman is all swaggering confidence now. “You know, my room has a big balcony. Can see most of the city from up there.”

“Really?”

“And I have the perfect idea on how we can enjoy it.”

It’s been a hell of a week. The CIA has been hounding them all week for information on this informant that recently resurfaced, and if there’s one thing Carolyn hates, it’s Americans. So smug, so dogged. It’s really very boring.

Then there’s Geraldine at home, insisting on doing something called Gong Bathing, where she lays in the middle of the living room while Carolyn has to bang a gong that Geraldine ordered from Tibet saying it was an antique that had been used in a monastery in the 16th century (Carolyn decided not to point out the Made in China sticker on the bottom) every night before bed, so Carolyn’s taken to balancing her three fingers of gin in her Mikasa crystal tumbler on the edge of the coffee table next to her, alternating between that and the intelligence reports on her tablet.

She’s just about to wrap up for the day, this week thankfully over, when her assistant, this lovely young lady fresh out of uni who Carolyn found moldering away in data entry comes in with a nervous look on her face. She knows Carla enough now to know that face means this hellish week isn’t over.

“What is it?” She asks, sharp and succinct as always.

“It’s Virginia and Vita.” Of course it is. “There’s… there’s a video. It’s gone viral.”

Carolyn holds out her hand.

“Let me see it.”

Carla hands her the phone. It’s a tweet, someone called julia ghoulie-ah with a bunch of ghost emojis around the name posting a video, captioned “HONESTLY, COUPLE GOALS!!!!!!” The video has 740k views, and the tweet has 20.8 K likes, and it’s only been online for a couple of hours.

Carolyn plays the video. It’s blurry at first, obviously nighttime. There’s a building, not too tall, mid century modern looking. The camera zooms in, onto a balcony, and two figures, lit up by all the ambient light of the buildings around them. It only takes a few moments for Carolyn to realize what they’re doing, one figure bent over the railing being pretty obviously railed by the figure behind her, and Carolyn instantly recognizes the wild curls on the one bent over and the cat that ate the canary look on the figure behind her.

“Goddammit, Eve.”


	19. Catherine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay posting this! It was my birthday this weekend so I'm afraid all the revelry took up most of my time.
> 
> Last chapter next week! Should be posting the first chapter of my ABO that week as well.

Catherine was, honestly, tapped out.

Her last two films had been, in a word, bombs. The critics had lambasted them, calling them uninspired, vapid, lacking the passion that characterized her early work. When she was being desperately honest with herself, usually at three in the morning, clutching a bottle of bourbon and staring into the dark sea visible through the tree line of her property, she knew why. Her movies were uninspired because she was uninspired. But it wasn’t her fault, not really.

She’d won best director as Cannes six years ago for her second film. It was about a small group of friends trying to find one another on a hot summer night in the clubs in Paris in the 80s, trying to connect in a world before cell phones, the people they meet, the close encounters where they just miss one another. It was a film about that lost innocence of our youths, back when connections were tenuous, when you could forever lose someone when the phone number they’d written on your hand smeared off.

It had been based on an actual night out she and her friends had had back then, and she had infused all the love, the vitality, the energy she’d felt that night into every word of the script she’d written and every frame of the film she’d made. The reviews all mentioned the immediacy of it, of the emotions, the expressions.

Flash forward to her now, six years and two films later, and she’s spinning her wheels. Slowly, over the last six months, Catherine has started to realize why that energy, that realness, is missing from her movies now. It’s the life she lives now.

Before, she was the quintessential starving artist, as were all her friends, and they were always creating, always questioning, always thinking about the why and the how, examining and taking in the rawness of the underground world they travelled in. Now, her life is very different. At that Cannes film festival, she’d met the group of people she spends her time with now.

It was a group of people, about a dozen people all together, depending on where they were. It was a mix of fashion designers, muses, models, photographers, writers. They were all so effortlessly chic, everything they wore was some kind of rarity, beautifully made pieces put together beautifully. And draped in this finery, they would do what only be described as romping, going wherever they pleased around Europe.

Initially it was like the artists of past eras to Catherine. She felt like she was hanging out with the pre-raphaelites in Paris in the last 1800s, sitting in the big tree house coffee shop with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Lizzie Siddal, overcome with hashish cigarettes and too much red wine, watching lithe young creatures dance around ancient porticos and crumbling pillars, spending an entire night arguing over whether the sunset had been magenta or fuchsia. It had been intoxicating.

Now, however, it was all wearing a little thin. The people around her seemed less like louche bohemians and more like caricatures, acting the way they thought they were supposed to, and not the way they really were. Taking her inspiration for her films from them had produced two self indulgent bombs about pretentious assholes, really, trying so hard to maintain an image but never truly embodying it.

Tonight, she was with them more out of habit than actual desire for their company. They were on the island of Crete, heading to a party at the home of this woman everyone had been talking about all around Europe, wherever they went. This cat eyed woman, they said, was at once so charming, and dry witted, dressed with this undefinable flair. It was like everyone who had met her was under her spell.

Catherine had to admit that the house definitely impressed. It had been done up in a sharp mix of bleached white and crisp golds, bits of dark blues here and there, taking the rather cliche aesthetic of the Greeks and turning it around into something sleek and modern, arresting the eye. The lines were clean, lots of glass everywhere so everywhere you went, natural light lit up every inch. It was the art in the house that did it for her, though. It was this mix of expressionist and a surrealism, so many bright bursts of colours. There was one piece though, signed by an artist she didn’t recognize, a mix of mediums creating rough textures, something looking like a face surrounded by deep sanguine. It brought a chill to her spine for a reason she couldn’t place.

Raoul, the designer for a very old Italian fashion house, was obsessed. He had met this woman two weeks ago, and had come to the house at her invitation and could not stop raving about it. He told everyone about how when he’d asked for her interior designer’s name, she had nonchalantly shrugged and said simply, ‘just me.’ He’d asked her on the spot to do his summer home in Tuscany, a crumbling 14th century estate with ten bedrooms. She had smiled and said she would never design someone else’s house, so now they were here again tonight so he could convince her to do it, to beg her if he had to.

The woman was as he’d said. During dinner she’d had them all laughing over a story about ‘her very dear friend’ a legendary actor who she’d had over for dinner last fall, how they’d gotten rollickling drunk together and decided to take the garden shears to the back hedge and try their hands at toperies, and really, though, it kind of did look like an English Mastiff, if you squinted, or had had as much whiskey as they had.

Catherine couldn’t stop studying her as she spoke. The way the light hit her features, the reflective quality of her dewy skin, the fire in her eyes as she spoke, the intellect written into every sharp expression, it was addictive. All Catherine could think was how beautiful she would look on film, about how the camera would frame her like an attentive lover.

Catherine managed to get a moment with her alone after supper, while they were all lounging about the glass bottom pool on the second floor of the house, the view of the bedroom below it perfectly clear, a large round bed in the centre, its covers in utter disarray, like it had been actively used and then abandoned without care. The visual of this had seized her brain, and she had already begun to see it, the frame of it, the way she’d pull back to reveal that it was being seen through the water. Her gaze switched to this woman as she walked about the pool, clad in a high cut white one piece with high waisted white pants slit all the way up to her exposed hips. She had to know more.

“Mademoiselle, I have to ask you…” She turned and looked at Catherine, smiling, and god the intensity of that gaze made her falter, forget what she was going to say. She racked her brain, trying to catch the thread again. “The painting, the one downstairs by the entrance, it’s enthralling. The reds in it, and the textures. I must ask who the artist is.”

The smile grew into a delighted grin, and suddenly Catherine knew she’d unintentionally said exactly the right thing.

“An up and coming artist out of Korea. I’m lucky to have one of her pieces up, because she is usually very reclusive with them.”

“What a coup, then, for you to have it.”

“Well, it did take some convincing, but I was able to get my way eventually.” She said with an almost mockingly serious expression, and suddenly Catherine felt like she was witnessing an inside joke she knew nothing about. “If you’ll excuse me…”

She walked with purpose to the back of the house, leaving Catherine desperate for more of this enigma, of this place, of everything surrounding her. Later she would ascribe it to artistic greed for the muse that made her sneak out after her.

Standing at a hidden side door, she watched as the woman walked, no, sauntered really, over to a small studio on the other side of the lawn. Catherine hadn’t noticed it before, but from its location tucked under some trees, and painted a dark blue, she imagined that was the intention. She heard the woman call out a name she couldn’t make out, like she was sweetly beaconing a bird to her. A few moments passed, and then another woman stepped out of the open glass doors. She was smaller in stature, but had a presence that even from this distance read as being much larger. She was in paint splattered jeans and a loose cotton t-shirt, skin a deep caramel from the sun, but it was her hair that made her stand out, a wild nest of curls, the setting sunlight hitting it making it appear ruddy, burnished like copper.

She reached over into a little dish on a small table out on the grass, taking out two items, one she puts to her lips, and then with the other, yes it’s a lighter, and she’s lighting it up, all the while a sly look on her face at the sight of the woman sauntering towards her. She takes a puff and blows it out slowly, her whole body languid and confident.

“How’s the local bourgeoisie?” This other woman asks in a low American accent as she goes over to the large lounger chair by the table and sits down, leaning back and putting a leg up.

“Spellbound. It looks like my idea of creating this place as my living portfolio has worked out pretty well. He’s back, trying to convince me to do his place. I told him no tonight, but tomorrow I’m going to reluctantly agree. I should be done it within a month considering I ordered all the pieces for the living room after he asked me the first time. ”

“Playing hard to get with someone who always gets what they want. You are one clever woman.”

“Learned from the best.” Her muse says, and she’s sitting down, tucking herself up into the other woman, stretching out next to her.

The waft of the smoke has reached her now, the familiar kick of cannabis and it’s like a second hand high from it, from this place, from her muse, from this other woman, from the energy now radiating off of them together. Who her muse had been inside, all evening, that bewitching creature, was now this sweet creature, her face soft, her body submissive in its posture.

“How’s the piece?” She’s asking the other woman.

“Almost done.”

“For the bedroom?”

“Maybe.” Her muse reaches up, and begins to wrap the other woman’s curls around her finger.

“You ready for Berlin?”

“Yup. Just got the passports from Carolyn and the maid outfit is back from the cleaners.”

“Good. There’s a little restaurant there I want to show you. Makes the best strudel you’ll ever have.”

The way they’re moving together, now that their lips have met and their hands are searching the other’s form, it’s hungry, proprietary, while so tender.

This mystery, who is this woman, who are either of these women, really, and this strange conversation, it is all unfolding for her, and it’s all there, frame by frame in front of her eyes. She knows exactly what her next film is going to be.

It was beef stroganoff day in the cafeteria, as if it was done so to personally offend Carolyn. Apparently you can wield as much power as she does but still be subjected to noodles on beef. She’d endured best she could, but she’d come back to her office and asked Britta to order from her favorite Lebanse place.

She’s sitting with her chair facing the window, eyes closed as she listens to Chopin’s fifth movement, when she hears the door open. When she doesn’t immediately smell cardamom and turmeric, she turns around. Britta doesn’t have her ajvar in her hand, instead her tablet.

“Um, Carolyn….” She’s dancing about a bit, something she only does when she knows that she’s about to make a substantial amount of work for the both of them.

“What it is?” She asks, holding out her hand and taking the tablet.

She looks down and sees an article from Variety magazine about this year’s Cannes film festival submissions. She recognizes the name of one of her favorite French directors. Her new film is called Two.

Apparently it’s about two women, criminals, on the run, hiding amoungst the elite of the elite, touring Europe together, throwing parties and dancing with Dukes and getting drunk with prize winning authors, all the while stealing off into the night to satisfy dark urges. The article says that the early buzz predicts that this might be her Oscar picture. Looking closely at the still image from the movie, Carolyn sees an Asian actress with a head full of curly hair, gripping a knife and smiling at the cat eyed actress across from her, a tall, dark haired woman. Carolyn sighs.

“Well, I’m glad it’s my Muay Thai night, because honestly, I need to beat the living daylights out of something immediately.”


	20. Konstantin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're here! The end! Thank you so much to everyone for reading and leaving kudos and comments. The response has been so amazing, and I am grateful to each one of you. 
> 
> As a way to ease the ending of this fic, I've posted the first chapter of my next one, an ABO story. Please check it out! archiveofourown.org/works/27112771

Konstantin shows up back at the house for dinner at 7 exactly, carrying a bottle of Château Latour Pauillac, a bouquet of sunflowers and enough anxiety about how the evening was going to go to make his chest tight just like old times. When he goes to knock he finds that the door is ajar, it swinging open.

“Hello?” He calls out and is met with silence.

He walks in, closing the door behind him, and as his eyes adjust to the dim light inside after the brightness of the French sun, he sees what he knows to be Villanelle’s signature eye for style. But as he looks closer, he realizes there’s something new, something more. On the side cupboard there are framed photographs, pictures of a smiling trio of old Asian ladies with Eve squished between them, Eve and Villanelle on either side of an even older Asian lady, Villanelle with a man around her age with familiar looking eyes who he realizes must be her brother. The clincher, however, is the one of Villanelle kneeling next to a sweet, smiling little girl, their arms wrapped tightly around each other, and the smile on Villanelle’s face, the happiness, it’s nothing he’s ever seen on her before. Unconsciously he reaches up and lays a hand over his heart when he feels it ache, then realizes this isn’t a physical response, it’s his heart aching with emotion. He reaches out to pick the photo up because he has to see this closer when he hears what is unmistakably a gun being cocked behind him.

“Put it down.” It’s Villanelle’s voice, cold, tight, and there’s that anxiety all over again.

He places the frame down again, then raises both hands.

“Let me tell you how this is going to go.” She says behind him. “You are going to come in, have dinner, tell Eve how good her kimchi croquettes are, because they’re amazing, and then you are going to tuck your tail between your legs and run home like the bad dog you are. And once you leave this place, you will forget all about it. You will tell no one about us, or this home. If you do, I will tell a very interested head of the Twelve know that you’re living in Cuba.”

“You know the head of the Twelve?” He laughs unbelievingly and feels something press against his skull, the feel of the end of the barrel of a gun.

“As do you, Konstantin. You did used to fuck her, after all.”

“What… who do you….”

“It’s Carolyn, dumdum.” He hears the gun being uncocked and dares to slowly turn around.

“Why am I not surprised?” He says, talking in the sight of Villanelle here, so close.

She’s different in a way that he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s not just the short cut hair, making her cheekbones and jawline even sharper, her eyes even more feline in their tilt. And it’s not the surroundings, that seem like an echo of her and of Eve, of that space they create when they are in each other’s presence. It’s something else… something in the eyes, something…

“Babygirl, I know that’s not a gun in your hand.” Eve comes out from the door at the end of the hallway, drying her hands on a tea towel.

Looking like she’s been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, Villanelle guiltily smiles as she hides her hand behind her back.

“Well, now that you’ve threatened our guest with bodily harm, perhaps you’d like to take his coat.” Eve says, walking towards him, smiling. “Thank you for the flowers, Konstantin.”

“Of course, of course.” He hands them and the wine to Eve and then is roughly manhandled out of his jacket.

“Babe, there’s no need to rip his arms off while you do it.”

“What?!” Villanelle is all wide eyed innocence, the look so familiar, so her, that Konstantin has to smile at her. “What, what is it, why are you smiling like that at me?”

“Nothing, I just realized how much I missed you.”

“Well stop it, it’s creepy.” Villanelle says, turning around to hang his coat on a gorgeous wrought iron Art Nouveau style coat rack.

“Dinner is almost done. Come sit in the parlour while we wait.” Eve hands the wine to Villanelle. “Will you please open this and pour it in the crystal decanter?”

Villanelle takes it, leaning forward to kiss Eve, and as she leaves, places the gun on the gilded Victorian era chifforobe, all the while glaring at him.

“Honestly you deserve that.” Eve says, indicating the large white couch by the fireplace for him to sit, then taking her own spot on the couch opposite. “Why are you here, Konstantin?”

“I was being honest. I miss her. Very much.” He says, sitting forward to lean his elbows on his knees. “My life now… it’s very… there’s a lot of solitude. A lot of silence. And it unfortunately lends itself to much reflection.”

“Oh my god, is this like your recovery step where you admit to all the shit you’ve done and ask for forgiveness?” Eve says, scoffing.

“I’m not going to ask for forgiveness, because I don’t have the right. She never has to forgive me if she doesn’t want to. I don’t ever expect her to. But I know now what it is I did, the things I said to her. Each one of the harmful things, they all came back to me, danced in my mind, and I saw how cruel they were.”

“You knew exactly what you were trying to do. You did it with the intent to manipulate me.” Villanelle, with her ever present silent cat steps says, now suddenly at the door, chin down as she looks at him with what can only be called utter spite.

“Yes. I did.”

“You told me lies, about who you were, and who I was, and what the Twelve was. You lied and lied and lied.”

“Yes.”

“You used me to get what you wanted, to buy your own way out. You tried to divert me away from Eve because you knew that she would lead me away from your deceit, that she would treat me with honesty, and that she would make me better.”

“Yes. I wanted Eve far away from you because I knew that the more you both loved each other, the harder it would be for me to get you to hurt people.”

“Kill. Kill people.”

“Yes.”

“You wanted me to be just as alone and miserable as you are.”

“Yes. And now I’m more alone than you can imagine. I’m an old man, living a life that’s a lie, with no one, not even my daughter.”

“I know. She told me that you keep writing her.”

“What?”

“We exchange letters with her on a pretty regular basis now.” Eve says, and he looks over at her, utterly shocked. “We even visited her when we were in Russia a few months back.”

“I was complicit in what she did.” Villanelle says, sitting down next to Eve. “I’m trying to help her out of that mind frame. You were complicit too, and all you’re doing is trying to bribe her way out of there.”

“She won’t read my letters or take my calls!”

“Maybe you need to stop talking and actually listen to her.” Eve says.

“I’ve hired a better lawyer than that shit one you got. He’s going to take over her case and get her out of that prison and into a facility that helps kids from fucked up homes be safe and live a better life.” Villanelle says, her mouth a thin flat line.

“Why haven’t you just asked Carolyn to do it!?”

“Because we don’t like owing anything to the Twelve.” Eve says. “You should know how bad that can turn out.”

“How is Carolyn?” He asks because sometimes he still wakes up in a cold sweat, thinking about her face behind that gun pointed at his brain.

“She’s getting there.” Eve says, and he knows what she means, that the grief is still being processed.

“There’s so many things I want to say to her. I wish I could…”

“If you value your pathetic life, you’ll leave her alone.” Villanelle says.

“Okay, let’s try not to verbally assault each other too harshly.” Eve says as she places a hand on Villanelle’s thigh and Konstantin watches as she visibly softens at the touch, looking over at Eve like she’s the brightest star in the sky.

“Those photographs. That man with you. That’s one of your brothers, isn’t it?” He asks, going for a more pleasant topic and realizing instantly it was a mistake.

“How do you know that?! What are you doing sniffing around him?! You leave him alone!”

“It’s the eyes!” He says, hands out in a placating gesture. “You have the same eyes. That’s how I know.”

Villanelle’s lips tighten, and he feels his fate being decided when her eyes flicker briefly to the gun on the other side of the room.

“Yes. That’s my brother.”

“He is the sweetest young man. I got to meet him for the first time when we were in Russia. These two are a couple of peas in a pod when they’re together.” Eve starts to stroke Villanelle’s back, and he can see Villanelle gently calming down.

“We went to the Kremlin and made fart noises.” Villanelle says. “It was awesome.”

“And your other brother?” He dares to ask.

“Borka is coming out to stay with us this summer.” Eve says. “We’re all very excited.”

“Ah, that will be lovely.”

“Yes. We are going to have fun.” Villanelle says, completely deadpan.

“Okay, I would say that the cod is probably done.” Eve gets up, pulling Villanelle with her. “Shall we?”

The evening never completely loses the tension, but it does lessen enough for them to have a pleasant dinner. He asks about the house, about how long they’ve lived here, about where Villanelle got the gilded bar cart behind him. It’s Eve who tells him that she’s now a highly sought after interior stylist, that she recently did Edward Enniful’s country house outside Bath. He feels so proud of her in that moment, that he can’t help smiling so big at Villanelle and gets the first smile, albeit a small one, from her all evening.

Standing at the front door, putting his coat on to leave, he sees another picture that he hadn’t noticed before. It’s of Eve and Villanelle, each holding cheap fake flower bouquets, Eve in a diaphanous white dress, Villanelle in one of her signature suits, facing each other with what looks like an Elvis impersonator between them. He bends down to look closer and sees a sign on the wall behind them that says Little White Chapel, Las Vegas, and turns around to face them, eyes wide with shock.

“We were very drunk and Eve dared me.” Villanelle says, and then he’s being hugged so tightly. “I missed you too, you horrible old man.”

“Izvini.” He says softly into her ear.

“Okay.” She whispers back, and really, it’s more than he deserves.

“Please tell Irina… please tell her that if she wants to talk, that I’ll listen. And I won’t get mad.” He says as she pulls away.

“We will.” Eve says as Villanelle curls around her.

“You two. You two, you won didn’t you? You beat us all, and came out the better.” He reaches out to lay a hand on Eve’s shoulder. “Thank you for being so good to both of my daughters.”

Eve is smiling at him, nodding and he can tell in that moment that she’s changed too, that there is a calmness, a sense of purpose in her that he’d never seen in her before.

“Goodbye, Eve, Villanelle.” He goes to leave when he hears a soft voice behind him.

“Oksana. Call me Oksana.”

And it’s almost more than his heart can take.

_____

Izvini - Sorry


End file.
